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Book 

Copight N° _ Co. 

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THE COLLAPSE OF 
HOMO SAPIENS 




THE COLLAPSE OF 
HOMO SAPIENS 


P?ANDERSON GRAHAM 



G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
LONDON fcf NEW YORK 



First published June 1923. 


( 


Made m Great Britain by 

THE BOTOLPH PRINTING WORKS 
GATE STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.2 

AUG 17 1923 dj. 

©CL A tat. 5 276 ^ 


-ni -n- c,. Z3 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Note by the Editor ...... xi 

CHAPTER I.i 

The author tells how he was prepared for 
his exploit. Written in Kent, July, 1920. 

CHAPTER II.10 

He asks for a life of 2,000 years, but that being 
impossible, he is transported into the England of 
two centuries hence. His first visit. Its 
horror makes him pray to be sent back. 

CHAPTER III.19 

The desire to know revives, and after much 
pleading he is allowed to revisit the future. He 
finds there is a civilised remnant still flying the 
Union Jack and trying to rescue those who have 
reverted. 

CHAPTER IV.34 

A man-sick earth is Captain Hart’s theory 
which he upholds in argument with William 
Cecil. 

CHAPTER V.44 

A voyage up the reverted Thames. 


V 


VI 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER VI.51 

A rower tells why it was always growing harder 
to navigate the Thames, and the captain’s 
daughter has a narrow escape from the wood- 
landers. 

CHAPTER VII.59 

A meal on a river island, after which there is 
singing and Captain Hart tells as a piece of far-off 
history how the British Fleet was lost. 

CHAPTER VIII..72 

An exploration of the Settlement they call 
New London : a pioneer and his epitaph. 

CHAPTER IX.84 

A wattle-maker tells how the Settlement was 
nearly destroyed by a flood followed by a 
famine. 

CHAPTER X.92 

How Adam Grey unconsciously started a 
revival of the Christian faith which had been 
almost destroyed by famine and suffering. 

CHAPTER XI.101 

The old men and Christianity. 

CHAPTER XII.113 

The visitor rides with the captain’s daughter 
to Dr. Turnbull’s house in a distant part of the 
Settlement. They cross the barrier to visit a 
cave-woman. Her story. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER XIII. 

The traveller discovers that he has been taken 
to Dr. Turnbull’s house as a patient suffering 
from one of the delusions common in the Settle¬ 
ment. The doctor is assured of his sanity and 
allows him to copy from an old manuscript the 
story of the first Dr. Turnbull’s escape from 
Glasgow. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The first Dr. Turnbull’s account of his escape 
from Glasgow when it was sacked by the coloured 
army. How he makes his way to Aberfoyle—the 
village to which he had sent his wife. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The doctor’s wife begins the story of her 
escape. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Mrs. Turnbull’s narrative continued, her long 
vigil and final discovery of her husband. 

CHAPTER XVII ...... 

Mrs. Turnbull’s story continued. How she dis¬ 
covered an old acquaintance turned spy and 
traitor. His story and fate. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The story of Dr. Turnbull’s wife concluded. 
Janet the maid leads them to a hiding-place in 
the wild Ochils. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The attempt at revolution in London. 


vii 

PAGE 
12 7 

142 

152 

159 

168 

176 

186 


CONTENTS 


viii 

CHAPTER XX . 

Continuation of magazine article. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Conclusion of magazine article. Evidence of 
Major Fisher of the Air Service. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Scarlett MS. How Sir John Scarlett 
boxed with a coloured officer of high rank. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Scarlet MS. continued. How refuge 
was found in a shebeen. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Scarlett MS. continued. They are 
joined by other fugitives. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

The Scarlett MS. continued. Story of a 
desperate fight. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Scarlett MS. continued. The tragedy 
of a horse. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

The Scarlett MS. concluded. They come 
to the end of their troubles. The journey south. 


PAGE 

197 

202 


2 I 4 


227 


23I 


24O 


251 


26l 


CHAPTER XXVIII . 
The end. 


. 268 














Nous ne savons rien de la vie; son developpement 
dans le temps est une pure illusion. Et c’est par une 
infirmite de nos sens que nous ne voyons pas demain 
realise comme hier. On peut fort bien concevoir 
des 6tres organises de fa^n ct percevoir simultanement 
des phenomdnes qui nous apparissent separes les une 
des autres par un intervalle de temps appreciable. 

Anatole France. 


NOTE BY THE EDITOR 


T CANNOT tell the reader much about the author of 
this remarkable manuscript as I only saw him twice, 
once recently and once in early youth when we both 
ran to the same rock for shelter from a thunderstorm in 
the Caucasus. Falling into conversation I found him 
singularly intense and earnest, visionary and inclined to 
mysticism, but so obviously sincere that he impressed even my 
matter-of-fact mind with his confident prediction that 
England and Germany would go to war in 1914—so much 
so that in the succeeding years I gave much time to the 
study of international politics, and made many visits to 
Germany where I tried to fathom the intentions of the 
leading men, to one or two of whom I managed to obtain 
introductions. 

Those who know me are aware that I became an un¬ 
faltering believer that a struggle between Germany and 
Britain was inevitable. I spoke frequently to that effect, 
publicly as well as privately. 

My nameless acquaintance, who would tell me neither 
who he was nor whence he came, sought me out in the 
June of 1920 and left me a bundle of papers, typewritten, 
evidently by himself. He was sad and tired-looking, bearing 
on his face the memory of some dreadful experience and 
the wistful melancholy of one who knows that he is coming 
very near the end of his earthly pilgrimage. Whether he 


XI 


NOTE BT THE EDITOR 


xii 

was mad or inspired, a dreaming visionary or one who had at 
dreadful cost got into contact with the supernatural, the 
reader will be able to judge as well as I can. The notes 
are given with little alteration. They were originally 
written in the form of a series of letters and are now roughly 
arranged in chapters. The reader should be prepared for 
the appearance of many hasty first impressions that were 
contradicted or modified by subsequent observation, and 
also for the various loose ends which the writer would 
probably not have left if he had wished to turn the corre¬ 
spondence into a finished story. I have interfered with 
these contradictions only when they were obvious slips 
of the pen. Whenever possible it seemed preferable to 
leave the impressions as they were committed to paper. 
In that way their sincerity is maintained and a picture 
drawn of the England of two centuries hence, as my name¬ 
less correspondent saw it. 

One need not say that the impression is fragmentary. 
Two visits, both of brief duration, and one of them very 
brief, were not sufficient to obtain material for anything 
like an exhaustive survey. The writer has confined himself 
to a description of such occurrences as came under his own 
observation or could be copied from letters, diaries and 
other documents containing first-hand contemporaneous 
accounts of the events with which they deal. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


I 

The author tells how he was prepared for his 
exploit. Written in Kent, July, 1920 

I HAVE chosen you as my friend. We met but for 
an hour or two, but we did really meet, mind to mind 
and soul. You scoffed at my supernatural beliefs and 
experiences and tried to ridicule them. I did not much 
mind that at the time and far less now. You chopped 
logic with boyish earnestness and ingenuity, as though 
nothing could be true unless it could be put down like 
the multiplication table. 

Watching you afterwards, when you little suspected it, 
I found that in spite of your resistance the seed had fallen 
on good soil! You winnowed what had been said and 
checked my prophecy by reason and research. I stayed 
in the same Hof from which you went to a very disappointing 
interview with Bernhardi. I found that although limited 
in outlook you were faithful, honest, discreet and courageous. 
Therefore, I confide this message to you with confidence 
that you will discern part of the truth at least, and on the 
whole I prefer that it should be first read by one who will 
ever be something of a Doubting Thomas. 

You will forgive me for remaining nameless, and in 
return you shall hear all that it is useful to know about 
“ The thing behind the pen.” Who I am can at the most 


2 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


be of interest only to the vulgar; what I am is a legitimate 
inquiry by any and every sympathetic reader. 

Let me start with my grandfather, to whose influence 
I have responded more than to any other. His personality 
was many sided. Unfortunately, I was very young when 
he died, and all I can remember of him is that of an ascetic 
and elongated patriarch with a face saint-like, except for 
the irony that veiled its goodness. He was wheeled along 
in a specially constructed chair by a crusty but aged man¬ 
servant who must have been as old as himself. It was 
mostly from the conversation of survivors and references 
in contemporary biography that I found he was a prophet 
in his tabernacle, a wit in the House of Commons, and at 
home a thrifty and business-like landowner. He was a 
J.P. and rigorously strict with poachers, but many stories 
are extant of a whimsical good nature not easy to reconcile 
with the harder features of his character. “Asa magistrate 
I was bound to reprimand and fine you,” he is reported to 
have said to a hardened offender, “ but as a man, I have 
brought you my forgiveness and a present out of which 
you can pay your fine.” 

It would have taken one older and more experienced than 
I to blend these features into a portrait. You may have 
come across Thomas Carlyle’s description of him as “ a kind 
of spiritual Don Quixote marshalling the Cherubim, 
Seraphim, and all the hosts of heaven to defeat the scientific 
materialism then making much headway. He might as 
well have built a nine-inch brick wall as a defence against 
modem ordnance, or replied to rifle-fire with a crossbow.” 

Looking back, it is easy to see now that my desire to 
penetrate the future was partly founded on a confused and 
thwarted mysticism. I came in at the tail of a religious 
movement that failed to interest the young. In explanation 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


3 


I must recapitulate what I learned from the huge collection 
of my grandfather’s correspondence that never got pub¬ 
lished. The best letters were those that passed between 
a small but intimate circle of men steeped in the same 
faith and hope. My first uncomfortable doubt arose 
from their habit of turning the history of the nineteenth 
century into a confirmation of their beliefs. My hero, 
Napoleon, was to them anti-Christ, and the victories of 
Trafalgar and Waterloo intimations that Jehovah had 
selected England as the nation worthy of the re-birth of 
primitive Christianity. 

The mission of this Church, when translated out of their 
mystical language into homelier speech, was to prepare a 
Band of Saints to act as stewards on that day when Jehovah 
with His Son was to hold His great assize. They were to 
act as marshals when the dead : the good who had slept 
in His Eternal Peace, and the chapfallen rascals who had 
already felt a touch of the rod laid in pickle for them, were 
to come trooping from the tomb. It was from a prayer 
with which my grandfather used to conclude evening 
worship that I got this picture of the sheep and the goats. 
I was lonely and imaginative, and in my contemplative eye 
saw Jehovah on His great Mote Hill, just as I saw Christian 
going across the river, or Guinevere when she “ let make 
herself a nun and wore white clothes and black.” They 
were all stuff to make dreams out of—playthings of fancy. 
As my elders and betters declared that was how it would 
happen, I took it all on trust, as I did the “ Pilgrim’s 
Progress ” and the “ Morte d’Arthur.” 

Many interesting people, whose acquaintance my grand¬ 
father made when attending Parliament in London, would 
find their way to the Manor House, and I noticed that only 
a few, and they the more elderly, would seriously discuss 


4 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


the approach of the Day of Judgment. Others would ask 
questions and listen with an interested deferential air 
covering their incredulity. Some carried names that I 
recognised, when I had passed into my teens, as famous in 
Art, Literature, Travel and Science. 

By then, my grandfather’s once rich and manly voice 
had grown very thin, like his body. He still was a pillar 
of the Church. The way he clung to his hope appealed 
to my fancy as resembling many a boyish chase of a moor¬ 
land bird that seemed half tame, yet would not be caught. 
Off goes the plumeless biped in hard chase. The feathered 
biped sits and watches till the distance appears shortened. 
Then with a beat of her wings she has flown to a rocky 
pinnacle a hundred yards away. After her goes the pursuer, 
but with legs that grow wearier at every flight. So it was 
with my grandfather and the Hope he pursued. Night 
ended pursuit for the boy and the bird, and night eternal 
closed on the ancient. 

Presently he was laid to sleep with his forefathers. My 
mother, who had long been an invalid, died in the same 
month. Grandfather left me a letter dictated a week or 
two before his death which will help to explain one or two 
things which might otherwise be obscure : 

“ My day is ending,” it said, “ and before my under¬ 
standing fails I wish to tell you of my compact with your 
father. I will make it clear as far as it relates to you, 
but if at the moment you do not understand, read it when 
you have gained more experience. It is, that you should 
never be sent to any school or college. Do not imagine 
that I mean to condemn these institutions or to convey 
such a false notion as that they tend to cramp genius. You 
know that many whose friendship has been very dear to me 
are justly grateful for what they received from public 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


5 


school and university. Even the partiality of a grandfather 
is not equal to saluting you as a Tennyson or Gladstone of 
a new generation. Nevertheless, you have a gift that would 
inevitably be lost if you were drawn into the formal studies 
or organised games of young people, whose own clever talk, 
as well as the teaching of the preceptor, grinds the mind 
to a dead level, and too often destroys what is original if 
it is out of accord with average opinion. This is particularly 
true of you with your interest in the unseen. Since its 
earliest manifestation I have watched the winnowing 
process that goes on in your mind but I will not pursue the 
topic lest you be made self-conscious. You will continue 
to be taught by the curate who is not long out of college, 
young, a man of exceptional learning and ability, and not 
too much religious zeal. Before closing, which I must do 
speedily as my strength is waning, I wish to say (and I say 
it to you alone) that I feel less confidence at the end of the 
journey than I felt at the beginning. Therefore, think 
for yourself and entertain no opinion simply because it was 
mine. When you read this, the last valedictions will have 
been said, and I will be with my ancestors. So I refrain 
from expressing an affection you never doubted. Farewell.” 

My grandfather in the days of his youth had dreamed 
of reviving religion in its early purity when the worshipper 
implicitly believed in a living God and a living Gospel. 
From the vision of my father the Omnipotent Judge had 
faded, He and His angels and archangels. Charles Darwin 
probably never thought he was sapping religious belief 
when working at his theory of evolution. He was simply 
a disinterested student who seldom engaged in speculation 
with regard to ultimate effects. In his arrival at certain 
conclusions he saw nothing that kept him from attending 

B 


6 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


church. Bishop Lightfoot in the same way appeared to 
have separate compartments in his brain for criticism of 
what had been regarded as sacred texts and religious belief. 
My father, though he specialised in history, had an infinite 
curiosity that led him to read very widely, and I imagine 
religious fervour cooled gradually. At any rate, it would 
not burn at the end of the nineteenth century as it had 
done at the beginning. Yet his temperament remained 
mystic, and if he cast aside as superstitions many things 
taught as solemn truths in his youth, it was only to take up 
a new view of the spiritual. It he alternately clasped to 
his bosom and rejected. He must often have been per¬ 
plexed and he would not discuss the things of the spirit 
with me. 

In riper years I have wondered whether my grandfather 
was mistaken about the curate, or, having looked deeply 
into his mind, deliberately chose as my teacher a young 
clergyman who was already questioning the faith he pro¬ 
fessed. The latter could be the case only on the assumption 
that in old age the flower of his own faith had withered, 
and he was assailed by doubt and mistrust. 

My father succeeded to considerable wealth, and not 
caring for public life or theology, gave himself up to the 
study of history, particularly the rise and fall of nations 
and civilisations. In his day the number of the Chosen, as 
adherents of the new belief called themselves, had dwindled, 
and he, lukewarm from the first, finally drifted apart. He 
had inherited a leaning to mysticism, but it took a new 
form. “ Look neither before nor after,” he used to say, 
“ life is only a spasm, a gleam. Take pleasure as it comes 
and do not worry about the beginning or the end. I 
hate the sight of your eternally sober face. It makes me 
imagine you are preparing for that consummation of human 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


1 


hypocrisy, dying with a good conscience. Death-bed 
repentances, forsooth ! The regrets that assail a man in 
the long and last are for the opportunities of pleasure he 
has thrown away, the songs unsung, the bottles still in 
his cellar, the pale primroses of women who have died 
unmarried. I’d rather see you dead than developed into 
a man with a purpose—by God I would ! ” 

I thought such advice must be due to disappointment 
and never thought of taking it. “ If this be the effect of 
studying history, my parent,” I said, “ you must be hence¬ 
forth classified as a warning and not an example. My 
whim is to travel and study the living and the future, not 
the past and the dead.” 

“ You can only guess at the future,” said my father, 
“ and the only solid ground is to assume that in a universe 
which seems after all to be finite, what has happened before 
will happen again.” 

“ As to that,” I retorted, “ you can only guess at the 
past. There is no guarantee that any occurrence has been 
fully and accurately recorded. How can you trace cause 
and effect with any certainty while there is an unknown 
factor ? ” 

With the pertness of youth, I was repeating one of his 
own sayings, and it went home. 

So we parted, but afterwards I sometimes thought, 
when contrasting that outburst with his earlier tenderness, 
that I might have done worse than stay at home and study 
my father. When I returned after my Balkan tour it was 
too late. His study of history had been merged into anti- 
quarianism pure and simple. His mind was taken up with 
pedigree, charters, coats-of-arms, heraldry and old houses. 
When I went into his study he merely lifted his eyebrows 
and said : “ Is that you again ? Please occupy yourself 


8 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


for an hour or so. I’ll see you when I have finished with 
this fourteenth century manuscript.” 

And he forgot all about it. Yet some dim memory 
must have remained. He wrote shortly afterwards that on 
my twenty-first birthday my very liberal allowance had 
been changed into a still more liberal income. 

“ I will not do you the injustice to believe that you will 
be grateful for this as a token of affection from your doting 
father. At any rate, you do not possess the money sense. 
Poverty is the only stimulant I carefully avoid. Were you 
to take it in excess, the result would be to throw you into 
a career, which to me would be an annoyance. I would 
hate to see you a self-made man. I do not mean a millionaire 
—you have not the texture for that—but your lack of reason 
and commonsense, your singularity of character, your 
present indifference to what are called the prizes of life, 
above all, your damnable tenacity of purpose and will might 
combine to make you a rotten celebrity in this rotten age. It 
occurred to me that the only means of keeping you out of 
the hurry-scurry was to bestow on you means far beyond 
your spending power, which is much below the average. 
With your material wants fully supplied the only danger 
to be feared is that you will turn baby and cry for the 
moon.” 

After reading this fond epistle it dawned on me that 
some disappointment in life had brought out in my father 
what used to be latent, viz. the irony and cynicism which 
winged my grandfather’s speeches in Parliament and died 
away in his Tabernacle. No doubt he thought his prophecy 
had come true and that I really had become a baby crying 
for the moon when he came to know that I was beseeching 
the Infinite Power for the grant of a two thousand years’ 
lease of life in order to gratify my curiosity regarding the 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


9 

outcome of the great stirring in the Family of Man which 
took place in my generation. 

Everybody, except the curate under whose tutelage I 
remained till my eighteenth birthday, laughed and scoffed 
at my ambition. So I learned to nurse it in secret. With 
the curate alone was there any free interchange of ideas. 
Of him and his intelligence a poor opinion was held by the 
dull materialistic country people. His want of prudence 
and good sense was made evident to them by his refusal of 
a living which contained only three hundred and twenty-six 
inhabitants including the babies, and the income was six 
hundred pounds a year with a fine old Rectory and garth, 
so that it appeared to have been created for a studious 
young clergyman like himself. Besides, he affronted his 
only rich relation by his refusal. His madness became 
still more apparent when he announced his intention of 
retiring from the priesthood on the whimsical ground that 
he could not preach doctrines in which he had ceased to 
believe. Some, perhaps the majority, did indeed refuse 
to endorse so harsh a judgment. They shook their heads 
and swore he was a sly dog. More said wittily “ Cherchez 
la femme.” Others guessed that he had got mixed up 
with backing horses; a few that he had taken to secret 
drinking. So true is it that the surest way to deceive is 
to tell the truth ! 

He had indeed chosen a mistress, and her name was 
Knowledge; he had got hold of the wrong key to the uni¬ 
verse and was determined to seek the right one. It was 
he who taught me, and as soon as I could command the 
means I followed him to India, implicitly believing that 
only in the shining Orient lay any chance of my desire 
being fulfilled. 


He asks for a life of 2,000 years, but that being 

IMPOSSIBLE, HE IS TRANSPORTED INTO THE ENGLAND OF TWO 
CENTURIES HENCE. HlS FIRST VISIT. ITS HORROR MAKES 
HIM PRAY TO BE SENT BACK 

IN three score and ten years, only a brief and passing 
glimpse of world history can be obtained. Centuries 
are required to show the results of even a minor political 
revolution. If man is to connect great events with their 
distant results he should be accorded a life of two thousand 
years at least. 

During the German war, and still more after the signing 
of the Armistice in 1918, my desire for a great prolongation 
of life was intensified till it became almost a madness. 
Golden possibilities were disclosed on the path of progress, 
but yawning gulfs also. The uncertainty deepened my 
burning desire to pierce the veil of the future, were it 
at the price of eternal damnation. 

I will not dwell on my methods of study and I would 
not wish, after my experience, that anyone should attempt 
to look beyond the clouds that mercifully hide the future. 
Success, if I am to judge by experience, brings but little 
gain and much sorrow. You, my friend, are tempera¬ 
mentally too cold and practical to be led into an adventure 
so wild and dangerous. Rather in the way of your race 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


ii 


would you go on from day to day accepting stoically and 
even cheerfully the good and evil, the storm or sunshine 
unfolded at every dawn, content that at the end of your 
little day joy and tribulation alike should be rounded with 
a sleep. 

I belong to the unhappy who will knock at a closed door 
till hands be frayed and bones broken, always daring to 
hope to win the adventure that has baffled those who have 
gone before. Hence it would serve no useful purpose to give 
more than a hint of the studies to which I surrendered 
myself backed by the help of my unselfish and faithful 
friend, the curate, who, from his death-bed, wrote to me 
of the manner in which his conjecture could be verified 
or disproved. 

Spiritualism was of no avail as interpreted. The dead 
are dead and hold no communication with the living. 
That is not to say that in the universe there is no race 
but that of man. There are planets in which intelligence 
begins where on earth it ends. In the message I want 
to leave I must not dwell on the years of fasting and study 
and loneliness in which I was worn to a shadow in a pursuit 
I dared not confess because it would only have caused 
doubts of my sanity. After wading through years of fruit¬ 
less research and encountering failures enough to make the 
heart sick, I accidentally got into communication with an 
intelligence whose home was no single sphere but the uni¬ 
verse, one to whom human time was nought, as were also 
human fears, joys, sorrows and emotions. The fortunes 
of mankind meant no more to him than those of a tribe 
of insects, one year swarming over the earth, the next 
swept out of existence. 

He would not let me address him in the language of 
intercession. “ I am like you,” he said, “ but of a different 


12 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


sphere and a different power. I am not immortal; 
nothing is immortal. Neither the Earth, the Sun, nor 
the God who made them. Everything is passing away, or 
rather, dissolving, to be re-fashioned into other forms.” 

This only whetted the eagerness of my curiosity and 
made me pray more earnestly than ever for a two thousand 
years’ extension of life, protesting that less would not enable 
one to judge where the currents of to-day were flowing. 
There was a strange stillness in the voice with which he 
replied with finality: “ The race to which you belong 
is not assured of that span. You ask what I cannot give, 
but as you have penetrated so far, I will lift a corner of 
the great curtain so that you may at least gain an inkling 
of what you desire.” 

Then he bade me return to the little tower where my 
study is and await what would happen. This tower is 
part of an ancient house in Kent, and around it are the 
plantations, hop-fields, orchards and fruit-gardens of that 
rich and beautiful county, all of which my eye dwelt on 
with a new though pensive pleasure, for instinctively I 
felt myself on the edge of an adventure unparalleled in the 
history of mankind. Kine and fat beasts were in the fields 
—the month was June and the year 1919. Swallows 
chittered above the window, and two gamesome fillies 
romped with one another in a meadow rank with grass and 
clover. The simple, homely scene was cherished in my 
mind as an exile cherishes his last sight of home. I suppose 
it was impressed the more deeply because of the state of 
excitement in which I lived. 

Notable events in my memory are nearly always con¬ 
nected with some colour, scent or sound, and the arrival 
of the message is closely associated with the smell of rose¬ 
mary diffused in the dewy June atmosphere from a great 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 13 

plant growing at the door. Rosemary, a slight silver 
girdle of a moon and a night-bird singing—I was thinking 
how often I had witnessed the same combination without 
getting tired of it when the summons came. The unforget- 
able voice sounded as natural to the starry night as the song 
of the nightingale. 

“ Man,” it said, “ never had an Eden that he did not 
make a Hell. Why feel solicitous about his future ? Other 
animals have had their day and have disappeared. So 
will Man. I will show you the stage and the actors as they 
will be two centuries hence, but I warn you that the effect 
is likely to be painful and unexpected. However, it is 
decreed that you shall make this journey and I am only a 
servant of the Will.” 

How it was done I know not, but as he spoke I was rapt 
away from the Kentish surroundings. Daylight seemed 
to have returned and bits of England began to pass before 
my eyes like a landscape seen from a railway train. Only 
there were no railways. Where they had been were long 
narrow dells, the mounds on each side of which were over¬ 
grown with bracken, bushes, briers, thorns and other 
inhabitants of the wilderness. Where towns and villages 
had been, with their churches, halls, streets and stations, 
was only a wilder confusion of weed, scrub and mortar. 

I looked more carefully at the vegetation and then saw 
that the products of human skill, the beautiful apples and 
pears, the cultivated berries and flowers had either reverted 
to the wild type or been smothered by vigorous weeds. 
Not a single patch of cultivated ground was visible. Mostly 
the country was covered with forest, tall in some places, 
mere scrub in others. Swamps one had read about but 
never seen had re-appeared and had attracted a population 
of waterfowl—mallards, moorhens, coots swimming with 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


H 

their young, gulls of the inland breeding species faring to 
and fro, or rising in white clouds from the water. 

On the edge, little shaggy ponies cropped the fresh 
grass. Occasionally small cattle showed their white coats. 
Deer wandered down the glades and the tiny horses and 
cattle looked as wild and shy as they. Among the trees 
one caught sight now and then of a furtive animal, gliding 
stealthily from thicket to thicket. “ That is Man,” said 
the guiding Voice. 

It seemed to me incredible. Looked at more closely 
they were seen to be very stunted, lithe and active, but 
with heavy and brutish faces, jaw and mouth grown coarse 
and strong like those of the carnivora. Such scanty clothing 
as they wore consisted of skins of animals badly dressed. 

“ Why are they so timid ; what do they fear ? ” I was 
going to ask, but the question was anticipated. “ They go 
in fear of one another,” said the Voice. u Hunger has turned 
them into cannibals. As they began their own ruin, so 
they are completing it.” 

I could not believe that the little figures were really 
men, and I tried to hail them, but they fled with strange 
horrible cries of fear and alarm. It was so bewildering 
that for a time I was like one in the throes of a nightmare. 
But no ! The green country was overgrown with familiar 
trees and wild birds were trilling or chirping their ancient 
notes. It was England sure enough, but to what part had 
I been translated ? I found myself walking till I came to the 
banks of a river, a broad, clear stream working its way through 
an expanse of mud stretching on each side to a border of 
flags and rushes. Many clear, clean brooks flowed into the 
parent stream. No bridges crossed it, no boats or other 
craft were on its broad waters. “ Father Thames,” I 
almost shouted, “ strong without rage, without o’erflowing 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 15 

full” The tide was up and there could be no mistake. 
How beautiful! was my first thought as I looked at the 
great water so smooth and almost still, with tree-shadows 
falling on its surface. 

Admiration changed to despair when I looked round 
the landscape and began to realise that the mantle of green 
with its coloured embroidery covered ruin and desolation. 
Where were the houses ? Where were the joyous, energetic 
workers ? Gradually bits of walls, stumps of bridge pillars 
and other remains could be identified. St. Paul’s was 
recognised in a heap of ruined masonry; the water was 
lapping over stumpy bits of building that had once held up 
Blackfriars Bridge. Foundation pillars of Westminster 
Bridge could be discerned when one got to close quarters, 
and a gaunt arch of the Abbey was left, but evidently the 
Houses of Parliament had been utterly destroyed. Not a 
stone reared its mouldering head above the greenery that 
had taken possession of the site. 

Standing by the river bank I recalled the little figures I had 
seen. It was easy to do so, indeed, it would have been 
difficult to banish them. Every detail of their appearance 
was permanently registered in my mind, and fight as I 
would against the belief that they were human, there 
was not a feature which did not belong to the race. They 
were small men and women. I had to admit to my own 
questioning that their limbs were not unsymmetrical, 
mouths, eyes, chins, noses were indisputably human. The 
animal look in their faces was not more pronounced than 
might have been seen in the London slums when British 
civilisation was at its highest. There was no change which 
could not have been produced by starvation and other 
forms of hardship including ignorance, the greatest hardship 
of all. From that point my mind wandered away into 


16 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

conjecture as to what could have been the terrible catas¬ 
trophe that had in this rude way arrested the progress of 
the greatest race of man the world had possessed. 

Lost in reverie, I must have remained a long time in 
front of the river, as the tide had receded. My power of 
apprehension is sure but not quick, and bewilderment 
for a time prevented consecutive thought. The sun had 
moved considerably to the West before I had even begun 
to realise the transformation. There was nothing out¬ 
wardly dramatic or dreadful in the plain, simple picture 
before me. Many of the essentials had undergone no 
alteration during the centuries, such as the stretch of mud 
left by the receding tide, the sun shining less brilliantly 
as it got to the west, the trees and herbage and wild flowers, 
the breeze sighing among them as it had sighed on millions 
of summer days. It was no dream, but the memory ever 
grew more dreamlike that here once stood the greatest 
city in the world, a city that darkened the beautiful sky 
with its smoke and drowned the noise of the wind in its 
unceasing roar. 

Dusk had already come, and the feeble silvery new moon 
was discernible in the sky when my thinking was inter¬ 
rupted. This did not happen in any sudden or sensational 
way. At first it was only a sound. Had I not lived so 
much in wild solitary places where eye and ear become 
keen to note signs of life, the sound might have passed un¬ 
noticed. It was no more than a rustling of dead leaves 
under the dense foliage of a group of beeches, but it told 
that some animal was afoot. The very thought made me 
realise what else had passed unnoticed—that the land 
hitherto seemed bereft of its small animal life. “ These are 
rats,” I thought, “ and they are stealing out from their 
hiding holes to see what the tide has left.” 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


17 

But it was a much larger animal than a rat which slowly 
and stealthily emerged from the undergrowth near a willow 
some thirty or forty yards from me. At first it crawled, 
then rose on its hind legs, cocked its ears and looked round 
suspiciously, half withdrew, came out for a second, bolted 
back and was lost till it appeared again far out groping 
and nosing on the mud like a dog searching for a bone. 

How it happened one could not see, but several creatures 
soon became visible, engaged in the same occupation. They 
were evidently addicted to quarrelling over their food, 
for each kept to his own territory and snarled at any intruder. 
“ If they were men, I would classify them as individualists,” 
was my inward comment. “ And they are men! ” I said 
aloud in my astonishment a moment later when one started 
in chase of another smaller than himself. They did not 
move on all fours, but on their two feet. Homo , like the 
goddess, was disclosed by his gait. It did not last long, 
a hundred yards’ race towards the wooded shore, a furious 
encounter at the edge of the coppice into which the victor 
disappeared carrying his victim, and it was over, leaving 
me sick with unhappiness. 

Hurriedly I prayed that my gaze might be withdrawn. 
To contemplate the human race as a reversion to the beast 
seemed too evil a thing even in a nightmare. 

I was taken at my word. Mud flats and forests and 
pigmy men all began to fade from my sight as living images 
die away in sleep, and I remember no more till I awoke 
in my Kentish bedroom depressed and worn out with my 
experience. 

I confess that I was ashamed of myself for two reasons. 
A sickly sentimentalism had come between me and the 
knowledge for which I had been ready to risk extinction. 
Also, there was a feeling that maybe I had lacked faith. 


18 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

The suggestion of cannibalism might have been put 
forward as a test of my fitness to be shown a full picture 
of the future. Relapses to cannibalism occurred during 
the Great War. They have in the past been associated 
frequently with starvation and famine. These were after¬ 
thoughts that I set down as they occurred. The immediate 
effect was sheer horror which was gradually superseded 
by a return of my old curiosity. 


Ill 


The desire to know revives, and after much pleading 

HE IS ALLOWED TO REVISIT THE FUTURE. He FINDS THERE 
IS A CIVILISED REMNANT STILL FLYING THE UNION JACK 
AND TRYING TO RESCUE THOSE WHO HAVE REVERTED 

M Y longing for a life of two thousand years was 
damped by this brief glimpse into the future. It 
dashed the hope on which my wish was based. I had 
been proud of Man and his pilgrimage through time. It 
lay like a river-course in a map. Life emerged as a mere 
trickle, emerged from the warm primeval mud and through 
unknown aeons kept on increasing and gathering tributaries 
till the human form took gracious shape and mind that had 
its origin in a far distant consciousness, grew till it flowered 
into such lords of intellect as Plato and Homer, Shakespeare 
and Newton. The stream of its growth had looked hope¬ 
lessly dammed more than once, but its strength prospered 
by opposition, and each successive obstacle overcome, 
it flowed on till the Holy Spirit of Man seemed to flower 
in every remote corner of the earth, and poets dreamed 
of a world ever at peace and pressing on to greater intel¬ 
lectual conquests. Ambition did not stop even at the 
achievement of immortality. “ O Death, where is thy 
sting, O Grave, where is thy victory ? ” 

The only doubt I had arose from the chance that the 

19 


20 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

great globe, which, after all, is but a small planet at the 
mercy of a thousand hazards, might possibly not endure 
long enough to enable Man to fulfil this lofty destiny. A 
catastrophic ending would be dignified and dramatic. It 
was hateful to contemplate even the possibility of an end as 
ignominious as that now forcing itself on my understanding. 

Earth was as fresh and fair and fertile as she ever had 
been, teeming with offspring engendered by her ruddy 
husband, the Sun. The only failure was Man. He had 
lost control where he thought himself King. 

In the heydey of his prosperity he had decided which 
birds, beasts and trees should live and which should perish. 
By skill and knowledge he had even added to their number. 
He was master of the Earth and made her produce exactly 
what he needed. Elements that he had feared, worshipped, 
during the childhood of the race, he now dominated and 
harnessed to his chariot. He made servants of wind, 
water and steam.. He chained the lightning and navigated 
the depths of the ocean and the air. What had been 
thought insoluble mysteries of Nature he had penetrated 
and laid bare. By what access of madness had he in the 
height of his glory flung away his rich endowments and 
returned to grovel among the beasts ? 

I tried to conjure away my recent experience as a 
dream or nightmare. It crossed my mind that the wide 
plains of space might be peopled with malignant spirits 
and that one of them had imposed on my credulity. These 
and other reflections only strengthened my resolution to 
probe this strange experience to the bottom. 

It had been the passion of my life to search and know 
what others had deemed inscrutable. Under this lay a 
hope, which I fain would have made a belief, that all could 
not have fallen equally low. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


21 


From the old tower in Kent, where I found myself 
after the first vision dissolved, I looked out on the busy 
tribes of men gathering and storing against the approaching 
winter, and ploughing and sowing in quiet faith that spring 
would return at its appointed time. They were doing as 
their ancestors had done for thousands of years. “ All’s 
well! ” the eternal watchman seemed to shout as he told 
the hours. To my solitude came rumours of human 
endeavour on a large scale, new commercial enterprises, new 
progress in science, new inventions, new discoveries, more 
enlightened politics, greater comfort for the poor, incom¬ 
parably better education. Who could believe in the fall 
of a race so industrious and provident ? Only there were 
dim premonitions of coming trouble. It was like a brilliant 
day with genial sun and cloudless skies when only the 
weather-wise take out an umbrella. Something in the air, 
a wisp of cloud, the rumbling of distant thunder had warned 
them. 

In this tranquil and prosperous autumn, signs of bad 
weather were not lacking. Industrial unrest was a sea that 
knew no calm. To an eye made jealous and apprehensive 
as mine had been, there was no evidence of new unity 
among the nations or of mutual understanding between the 
classes. Capital bestrode the high horse; Labour waited 
ominously, a giant eyeing his club. Birds of ill-omen, 
agents of destruction, flew hither and thither dropping 
their poison. But distant thunder is not always a pre¬ 
cursor of storm, and the history of humanity is but a 
recurrence of incidents essentially the same. What inspired 
hope was a memory of the brave, strong, gallant men, who, 
with gay countenances and resolute hearts, had marched 
to the war. At no epoch of the past could their superiors 
have been produced. 


C 


22 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


Autumn had passed into winter before I mustered courage 
to get into communication with the Being to whom I had 
previously had recourse. 

“ Let me see the future again,” was the essence of my 

hourly prayer, and it was granted. 

***** 

The same strange world was spread out. “ The grass 
withereth, the flower fadeth.” The phrase came to my 
lips and kept recurring as I noted the change from summer 
to winter. Green herbage was replaced by shrunken 
brown witherings and thousands of heaps of stones that 
had been concealed by the vigorous growth of flower and 
weed had now become visible. 

My eye searched the bare landscape till it rested on a 
spot where a number of monkey-like figures were gestic¬ 
ulating. What interested me most was that they were 
gathered awaiting some event. Quarrelling and fighting 
went on, but their gaze was never lifted for any length of 
time from what appeared to me only a larger heap of stones. 
At the least movement occurring near it every hand 
grew still and every eye was turned that way. Though a 
cutting north-easterly wind blew at the time, they reminded 
me of bees hanging round the opening of a hive at swarming 
time, and, as the languor of the insects is changed into 
buzzing activity when the young queen emerges, so a sudden 
excitement among the little men warned me that some¬ 
thing was going to happen. The something proved to be a 
tall, lean, upright man attired as I had previously seen 
Crusaders represented on their tombs. He looked as Don 
Quixote would have done had he worn a real helmet of 
Mambrino, for his iron headpiece must have been old in 
the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth. His body and legs 
were protected by a coat of mail, yet his intentions were 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


23 


evidently not warlike since he was followed by a number of 
acolytes bearing wicker baskets filled with loaves of bread 
and other foodstuffs, which he proceeded to distribute in 
the most orderly manner. The hungry crowd was evidently 
under control of a kind, for they seated themselves in a 
circle on bits of stone and looked up greedily like animals 
waiting to be fed. I could hear the armour clank as the 
giver of the feast paced round to see that no one failed 
to receive his portion. That he carried a gun seemed to 
indicate some doubt in regard to the good faith of his 
stunted and hungry guests. 

A nimbler wit than mine would have read the situation 
at a glance, but if you put yourself in my place you will see 
it was not so easy. It was all so strange and new; each 
little person munched and munched as busily as the “ rump- 
fed rallion ” in Macbeth , and I felt sure that the eyes 
gleamed with charity through the iron bars of the helmet. 
“ He is a philanthropist,” I concluded. Obviously a people 
without agriculture and apparently incapable of combination 
must, in the ordinary course of things, have died like flies 
in winter unless a Superior Being came to the rescue. 

The Superior Being hypothesis did not carry me much 
further, as from a place of concealment I watched the 
proceedings and tried to answer the questions they suggested. 
Why did he get himself up as a Paladin who might have 
fought under Charlemagne, save and except for the firearms ? 
Where did they come from ? How did he get the food so 
liberally distributed ? Were those acolytes voluntary ser¬ 
vants or slaves ? So I questioned and speculated. It 
took a long time to realise the significance of it all. 

When they were nearly done eating, my Superior Being 
apparently signalled them to form a half-circle where they 
were all facing him, and this they did gnawing the while 


24 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

at bones and pieces of bread in their hands. Evidently 
some sort of exhortation was to follow the meal, and thinking 
I might gain information, I left my hiding-place and tried 
to get within earshot. The speaker had his back to me, but 
the quick eyes of the audience were instantly turned my 
way. Their obvious surprise passed quickly into fear and 
alarm, and they raised a yell as if they recognised some 
terrible enemy. They moved away, but soon recovered 
from their fright, and had recourse to the most primitive 
of weapons, and the air became thick with flying stones. I 
was not hit, but with more promptitude than dignity, 
dropped behind what might have been a pre-historic tomb¬ 
stone. The flight of big stones made me wish I had possessed 
the old gentleman’s coat of mail, and incidentally explained 
why he wore it. With a shout of warning, he raised his 
gun, but seemed reluctant to fire at the turbulent but 
impotent mannikins. 

The majority stopped at once, but a few persisted, and 
stones whizzed past any part of me that could not be hidden 
by the time-worn tombstone. One or two missiles rattled 
against the philanthropist’s armour. He wasted no time 
in verbal protest. A shot rang out, and in the very act 
of heaving, one of the assailants dropped his arms, his 
knees gave way and he sank on the ground. There was 
no need for another shot. The stone-throwers fell into 
a panic, separated and fled. I noticed the quickness and 
skill with which they got a piece of ruin or a tree-stem 
in a line between them and the man with the gun. 

All this happened more rapidly than I can describe it. 
“ Come out of your hiding-place,” cried the man in English, 
though the accent was strange. “ Who are you, a visitor 
from another world, or what ? ” 

There was a touch of the ironic in his voice and well m 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 25 

keeping with the lean white face disclosed when he took 
off his helmet. 

“ Not from another world, but from another century,” 
I replied. 

For a moment he was bewildered, and then said quietly: 
“ This is not a very safe place for explanation or argument. 
Come inside. I’ll get these things off in a moment or two, 
and then we can talk at our ease.” 

He signalled to his small followers, and they passed by 
an arch to another portion of the great cave or ruin. 
During the few minutes it took him to change, my eyes 
wandered round the room in which he left me. To my 
surprise it did not seem wholly strange. From the fact 
that there were no windows I judged that originally it 
had been surrounded by other buildings. All the light 
available came from a blazing wood fire, but there was 
enough to show that the walls were unusually thick. Could 
it have been the dungeon of an ancient castle ? No ! 
Before entering, I had caught a glimpse of the river and 
knew at least that this had never been a part of the Tower 
of London. It dawned on me next that the thick walls 
might have been built for coolness. No, and suddenly I 
remembered it as the famous vault which enclosed a remnant 
of the Roman wall round London. 

A few years (or was it ages ?) ago I had actually been in 
this room with my father and below it was another of 
similar structure. As had been already hinted, he was 
something of a gourmet, and had called on his wine merchant 
about replenishing some portion of his cellar, and the 
latter had asked if he would care to look at the famous 
vaults which he said were the oldest in London. We went 
together, and I now remembered that great bins of sherry 
and port stood where now emptiness reigned. But evidently 


2 6 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


the thick and strong Roman walls had escaped the destruc¬ 
tion which had laid the higher buildings low. I had just 
made the discovery when my host appeared. He was a 
striking figure in the flickering light, clothed in a loose 
cloak of what in other circumstances I would have called 
a rather coarse home-made tweed. It and the white hair 
surmounting a noble forehead imparted a distinguished 
and rather mystic air, as of some great chieftain or antique 
prophet. 

“ I hope a hearty welcome will make up for the lack of 
comfort,” he said, and his voice was so unaffectedly kind 
that, hating to accept hospitality without explaining 
my singular position, I began to blurt out something about 
it, but he stopped me. 

Scanning my face with wise, kind eyes, he said : “ If 
you insist on telling your story, let it be at another time, 
or if it relieves you to repeat it, there is here one of the 
river men who has forsaken his people to take up his abode 
with us. He is affectionate, if not very wise or clever. It 
may be a relief to rehearse your story, and who knows but 
that it may stimulate his wit, especially if you have exciting 
adventures to relate. Once before we had a visitor like 
you, and he came to take great pleasure in a listener who 
never contradicted and never asked questions. My own 
attention is so concentrated on what I have to do that my 
mind strays and I become a nuisance and an irritation. 
That is the worst of belonging to such a small community, 
one’s sympathy is narrowed.” 

He spoke more to the same effect with such unaffected 
sincerity, that I failed for the time to divine what impression 
I had made. Indeed, I forgot all about it when I found 
that my host was frank and communicative about his own 
concerns and those of his companions. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 27 

It did not enter into my mind that William Cecil as he 
called himself had judged me subject to delusions, yet it 
was so. As I learned afterwards, temporary or even per¬ 
manent insanity of this kind had become a common malady 
after the terror, so much so that he would not have been 
surprised had I claimed to have come from the mountains 
of the moon. His method was to ignore everything ab¬ 
normal either in mind or appearance, and to try in his 
conversation to stir old memories of the colony and kindle 
a new interest in it. He did it so well that at the moment 
I had not the slightest idea of his intention. 

Up the river he told me there was a little Settlement 
containing all that was left of the civilisation of the British 
Empire. After the great war of extermination it appeared 
for a time as though the race were all but extinguished. 
The nucleus of the Settlement was a small band, who, 
when the enemy left as suddenly as he had come, either 
because he thought the work of annihilation complete, 
or that rebellion and revolution broke out in his own ranks, 
resolved to keep the flag of England flying in hope that the 
human race would eventually recover from the terrible 
blow inflicted upon it. 

Telling him of my horrible experience at the river mouth, 
I asked if the degenerates of the mud-flats were descended 
from the ancient inhabitants of this country or from their 
invaders. 

“ I do not like you to call them names,” he replied in 
a tone that conveyed more remonstrance than his words. 
“ They are our kinsmen, bone of our bone, flesh of our 
flesh. When I see what a number of ‘ naturals 5 are still 
among them I think of the fathers who begot and the 
mothers who bore them, or rather, their ancestors. They 
had been taught that mercy is divine, ‘it droppeth like 


28 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


the gentle dew,’ but their foes despised pity as a weakness 
of the west. In the later stages of the war they put to 
death with indescribable cruelty those who surrendered. 
They gassed such as made a stand and they hunted to the 
death those who ran away. Such children as escaped fled 
in mad terror to the waste and the woodland, where they 
lost the last tatters of civilisation, existing rather than 
living on the garbage that they could pick up. They 
became as the beasts of the field with no one to tell them 
anything about the gracious thoughts and wonderful 
inventions accumulated by their forefathers. In winter 
they died as the flies do because they had not the wit left 
to store against its rigours. Is it at all extraordinary that 
those who managed to preserve only a flicker of life should 
have become stunted in body and mind ? ” 

u And you help them,” I said in a low voice, “ because 
your ancestors and their ancestors were comrades in 
arms.” 

“ It’s the least we can do,” he replied, “ at the Settle¬ 
ment each man is now able to grow more food than he 
wants even in a long and hard winter. We all grow as 
much as we can in spring and summer, and everyone gives 
what he can spare in the way of potatoes, meat, eggs and 
other food. Among us are a few who do this with a bad 
grace and it is hard to blame them. Some of the little 
men are ferocious, and if they fall upon a strong man un¬ 
awares, they have been known to overcome him. They 
fling stones with great dexterity. They fight with sticks, 
feet and teeth, especially in winter when maddened with 
hunger. Those who have had brothers or sons stoned to 
death hate the murderers, and can scarcely be restrained 
from hunting and slaying them.” 

“ Have you always had them near you ? ” I asked. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 29 

“ Always in my time,” he answered, “ and as far back 
as our records go.” 

“ Your records ? ” I inquired, “ who keeps them ? ” 

“ At the present moment, Doctor Turnbull,” he replied. 
“ I did so till I got engrossed in this feeding station. The 
task is usually performed by the head of the state. I still 
hold that position, but the doctor was willing to do it and 
has better qualifications, for he is ever seeking what will 
throw light on our annals. I was well pleased to be relieved.” 

“ For a state that has had a very short life the history 
must be extraordinary ? ” 

“ It might have been,” he said mournfully, “ if the 
chronicle had been kept from the beginning. That could 
not be. At first, there was but a small company of survivors 
and fear hung over them. Besides, when they felt assured 
that the cause of that fear had been removed, they had a 
struggle for existence almost as dreadful as that of the 
wild people. Land had gone back to wilderness, tools 
and implements had to be sought for where they had been 
thrown down in panic. So we only know of the early 
days from stories handed down by word of mouth. When 
men, women and children were dying of hunger, no one 
found time or inclination to keep a diary. Fortunately 
for us they retained their reason and the resolution to 
teach their children in some rough way what they knew 
themselves. No chronicle was attempted till they had 
brought patches of ground back to cultivation and built 
huts in which to sleep and store food against the cold and 
hungry winter. 

“ Meantime, their numbers were increased by individuals, 
families and small groups who had managed to keep alive and 
maintain some of the ancient civilisation. Thousands must 
have perished because means of communication were 


3 ° 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


destroyed, but rumour, which is fabled to be carried by the 
wind, reached a few, and others were brought in by the young 
men of the settlement, who, when they realised that there 
were men and women to be saved, faced the dark and 
difficult perils of exploration on the chance of finding 
them. All did not return. They did not then know 
that part of the population had relapsed into an unbelieve- 
able heathendom, and were like packs of wolves roaming 
in search of what they could devour.” 

“ What a fall for humanity ! ” I exclaimed. “ Do you 
really think it possible to reclaim them ? ” 

“ We live by hope,” he replied. “ I feel sure that the 
first step is to provide them with better nourishment and 
save them from the horror of famine which every now and 
then reduces all to mere skeletons and causes many to 
perish. I think there is no harm at the same time in 
attempting a little education.” 

“ And are they apt scholars ? ” I asked. 

“ Far from it,” he answered. “ They don’t seem to 
have as much memory as ducks and hens. Every day I 
have to begin again at the beginning; yet one goes on 
partly because those who went before us never ceased 
trying to restore what you call civilisation, partly because 
here and there one shows a sort of dog-like attachment 
which may be cupboard love, but one lives in hope that 
human characteristics will return. At present they listen 
only because they associate my conversation with food. 
After being fed they will sit quiet, but I doubt if they 
really listen even to the simplest chat, and winter after 
winter they die in hundreds because they have not the 
sense to make a little hoard for the bad season. A very, 
very few hide nuts, honey and other wild-growing food, 
but I notice that they often forget where the little hoard is. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


3i 

I have noticed the same thing happen to a squirrel with his 
nuts and to a dog with his bone.” 

“ How has it all come about ? ” I asked, and the feeble 
words seemed only to mock the passionate desire behind them. 

“ There is nothing I would like more to talk to you 
about,” he replied, “ only I must caution you not to expect 
too much from me. I am ignorant of everything except 
the annals of my people, and had I possessed all the learning 
of the Egyptians it would have availed little, for my mind 
is too simple and limited. I must go now as the boys are 
waiting for me, but I will cut the lesson short and return 
as soon as I can.” 

He went away, but left me thinking. A personal interest 
in him was added to my intense curiosity. I thought I 
would like to see him at home in his primitive Settlement. 
Then I began to devise a plan of exploration. With a 
mind full of this idea I mechanically approached the chink 
whence daylight came, and looked out. The scene was 
strange and yet it felt familiar. The sun of a winter after¬ 
noon was shining on a forest glade. In the middle of it 
were two great oak trees, one of which had been cleft by 
lightning. Standing or lying about were many stones 
and heaps of stones, mossed and venerable, suggesting 
at a first glance an upheaved churchyard, though more 
likely the ruins were those of ancient dwellings. 

Some of the pigmy inhabitants could be easily seen, 
most of them with the plethoric demeanour which follows 
a good meal. I learned afterwards that they were in the 
habit of hanging round all the time like all loafers who eat 
the bread of idleness. When they realised that here free 
food was distributed during the cold season, those who dis¬ 
covered it speedily laid claim to a monopoly and drove 
away or killed intruders, just as if they had been civilised. 


32 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


I was more interested in the pranks of a few children 
than in their elders. They were racing, chasing, wrestling 
with one another and tumbling about generally. I thought 
arms and legs were long in proportion to the small bodies, 
the ears a little prominent, the chin small and the mouth 
strong and large with prominent teeth gleaming white. 
Such children they were as one used to meet with in a 
Gipsy caravan. A race in which they were evidently 
taking a wild delight was a four-legged one in which the long, 
muscular limbs were very noticeable. They had a trick 
that civilised man inherited from his remote ancestors of 
standing on their hands and waving their feet in the air 
while they grinned at one another from between their 
arms. In doing this they exhibited their strong white 
teeth, unspoiled by sweet-stuffs. 

When they approached the two trees on hands and feet 
one would suddenly spring upright, roll the others over 
and dart up the gnarled oak-bole with the ease and agility 
of a squirrel. The others would follow pell-mell, and there 
ensued a racing and chasing up and down the great limbs 
and through the branches with many leaps and acrobatic 
feats, such as swinging from a bough till another bough was 
clasped by the toes which seemed as flexible as fingers. All 
the time the pursued and the pursuing emitted sounds 
that I interpreted as laughter. 

It would have been a pretty sight, but for the association 
it called up. The pleasure was destroyed by the reflection 
that as the dog had gone back to the wolf, the garden rose 
to the brier, the thoroughbred to the forest pony, so man 
too was visibly reverting to his neolithic progenitors. Time 
like a tide that had been at the full and now had begun to 
ebb, was going backward discovering again as it receded 
the shore which had been covered by its advance. The 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


33 


tree that has taken centuries to grow can be cut down in 
an hour. Civilisation, which Huxley in his day described 
as a wall that would quickly crumble if a single breach 
were made, had proved a failure. The truth of his con¬ 
jecture was being demonstrated before my eyes. 

When Cecil returned, I got him to answer a few questions, 
and I have summarised his replies as follows : 

There had been a succession of bloody, ruthless, annihi¬ 
lating wars, but he did not consider these a first, but only 
a contributory cause. Some who wrote in the chronicles 
believed that the whole world had been desolated when 
England fell. They were reduced to guessing because ships 
had disappeared from the waters. No communication 
arrived from any other part of the world, and hence it was 
believed that mankind had ceased to exist in the far-off 
countries. If, for example, there were still living people 
in America, the Atlantic separated them from England as 
completely as death divides the living from the dead. The 
coloured races by some mysterious accident had mastered 
the secrets of the west—the mechanical and chemical 
devices by which the western sphere had for so long main¬ 
tained its superiority. They had even discovered a deadlier 
gas than ours, and explosives of such power that two or 
three moderate-sized bombs aimed from a moderate height 
had been enough to wipe London out of existence. 

It had been handed down in tradition that there was 
no real coherence in the coloured races, and that the alliance 
had been followed by a devastating internecine war. At 
any rate, no more messages came from the sea. The great 
waters that beat upon the shores of England had ceased 
to carry vessels bearing men on its surface and wrapped the 
island in a silent mystery. 


A MAN-SICK EARTH IS CAPTAIN Hart’s THEORY WHICH 
HE UPHOLDS IN ARGUMENT WITH WlLLIAM CECIL 


T this point our conversation was interrupted by a 



loud knocking at the outer door, accompanied by an 
impatient voice calling for Cecil. The latter, explaining 
it was Captain Hart with the food supply, immediately 
admitted him and briefly presented me. I was attracted 
to the newcomer from the very first. Like his friend, he 
was well on in years, lean and grey-haired, with an eye as 
bright as that of a young heron, and limbs the years had 
not stiffened. Withal, a something beyond soldiering in 
his look made it no surprise to find that he had tastes akin 
to those of the collector and antiquary of our own day. 
Only you could not imagine him buying to sell again, and 
his air of distinction was on the whole more suggestive 
of action than of learning. I was to see a great deal of him, 
as it was he who enabled me to visit the little community 
which, in a world relapsing into ignorance and savagery, 
kept the flag of civilisation flying and maintained a faith 
in the restoration of England to her ancient place of honour. 
His physiognomy was not without lines that betokened a 
choleric temper, and in that way offered a contrast to the 
meek and placid features of his friend. Evidently the two 
were hardened disputants, and their conversation gave me 
34 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 35 

a first inkling of the opposite views of policy in the Settle¬ 
ment with regard to dealing with those men without the 
Pale. 

Cecil it appeared was the optimist, Hart the pessimist, 
in their frequent encounters. 

The new arrival had a meal during and after which 
he heartily cursed the wild tribes declaring with many 
expletives that their wickedness was incurable and that 
although in deference to the wishes of his friend, who 
was also his commander, he brought down from the Settle¬ 
ment boat-loads of food for them they should be wiped 
out from the face of the earth. 

As we gathered round the fire, Cecil in mild and kindly 
tones addressed his answer to me. 

“ My son,” said he, and the affectionateness of the phrase 
was so natural as to cause no surprise, “ you must not take 
a dark or an unhopeful view of their malady. Old age is the 
only incurable disease. There is always a chance that youth 
will get over the worst ailment, at any rate, the case must 
indeed be desperate that produces despair. As these 
must have had good and bad ancestors, there will also be 
good and bad in their progeny. I do not believe in utter 
depravity either of body or of mind. Just as the darkest 
room is less dark if you can bring the shine of a glow-worm 
into it, so patient work carried on with hope will soon 
or late light the black cave of ignorance.” 

“ I know something of Cecil’s ancestors,” interjected 
Hart with a saturnine smile. “ They were men of piety 
and great supporters of religion. They carried their 
message to races whose religion was older than their own. 
Cecil has inherited their spirit, a kind and saintly spirit, 
but one that cannot get down to reality. It is not practical 
sense to talk of nursing humanity back to mental and 


36 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

physical health when the malady is not in the race, but in 
the earth itself. The earth has grown man-sick and will 
tolerate such creatures no longer.” 

On my observing that the idea of a man-sick earth was 
new to me and I would like to hear more about the malady 
and its symptoms, he promptly replied in a tone and with an 
air that left no doubt of his conviction. “ You know that 
soil will get tired of a crop, even of an animal. It may 
become bean-sick, clover-sick, cattle-sick, sheep-sick and 
so on. In a way resembling this it has become man-sick. 
Human life is going out because the earth can no longer 
put up with human antics and excesses. The race in its 
dotage is afflicted with diseases for which there is no medicine. 
They come from an earth sick of man and of his interference 
with Nature.” 

Cecil smiled with the indulgence of a father listening 
to the uninstructed opinions of his boy. 

“ Now Billy Hart,” he said, “ you have mounted your 
hobby and argument will not make you dismount. But 
railing as you do, and talking of diseases attacking mankind 
and of earth being sick of him, could you mention a single 
case in which reversion cannot be explained by common- 
sense ? ” 

“ Can’t you see with your own eyes ? ” was the rejoinder 
of Hart. “ At a rough guess I should say that nine-tenths 
of the inhabitants of this island have relapsed into helpless 
and hopeless savagery. You know I have helped you in 
every way I could to raise them a bit, and the results are 
nil. You know also that the animals man had in his keeping 
are going back in the same way. Our forefathers, as you 
can learn from tradition confirmed by many old pictures 
and documents in my collection, had many noble breeds 
of horses, great heavy cart horses for ploughing and hauling, 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 37 

thoroughbreds for racing, graceful carriage horses in many 
breeds, and all have passed away and given place to our 
rough forest ponies. It is the same with cattle, sheep and 
other domestic animals. Every living thing belonging to 
man grows smaller and smaller and promises to share his 
fate when the race is extinguished. Plants are following 
suit; the grains of wheat grow tinier, the potatoes diminish 
in size, even the garden flowers are suffering from the same 
plague. The garden rose has gone back to the brier; 
other flowers have either gone wild or disappeared, but 
it is only those useful to man that have suffered. Wild 
plants and vermin have grown like the very deuce. In 
spring you might think half the countryside was ablaze. 
It is only the colour produced by acres of gorse and broom. 
Foxes, otters and badgers have multiplied till they are so 
many plagues. A pair or two of wolves and some bears 
escaped from the menageries, and they have bred till they 
are a terror. Many varieties of the domestic fowl have 
vanished, but did you ever dream of such quantities of 
wild duck and waterfowl as have appeared during the 
last ten or twenty years ? Nature asserting herself is 
apparently determined to clear out the works of man and re¬ 
establish her own progeny. She resents his interference. 
That is what I mean by saying that the earth is man-sick. 
Every day of my life I come upon new facts to confirm the 
opinion.” 

Cecil, with the bewildered air of one sure of his case 
but unable to find terms that an uninformed opponent 
would understand, looked at me and asked if I had read 
much about evolution. 

“ Only general stuff,” I answered. “ Such reading as I 
have done lies in a different field.” 

“ My own case ? ” he said. “ One has had little 

p 


38 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

opportunity. Still, you will understand. Take the simplest 
case, that of the rose reverting to the brier. It is the custom 
to graft various varieties of garden roses on the wild rose. 
If you allow the latter to send up shoots from the root, 
they will grow with such vigour as to overwhelm the less 
robust graft, which is bound to perish unless renewed. 
During the years in which we had to shift from place to place 
to escape the foe, there was no gardening and so the brier 
had its way. That was not a case of earth-sickness. Now 
take the horse ; he was of little use in the days when we were 
hunted with aeroplanes and at our wits’ end to escape an 
explosive that left nothing alive in the field where it fell. 
The horses were allowed to run wild and bred promiscuously 
—the thoroughbred with the shire, the hackney with the 
forest pony, so that the foals soon began to revert to the 
original type. That was bound to occur. It was different 
with wild birds. Their great enemy had been civilised 
man, who killed as many as he could for food, and those with 
fine plumes for the adornment of his womenkind. He 
had weapons for doing so that were improving almost every 
hour. He controlled wild life and that became so much the 
easier because as the race grew in numbers the waste places 
where they could alone breed in peace became occupied. 
Then our forefathers were animated with a love of sport, 
which seems barbarous enough to us, that led them to 
interfere still more with wild life. They wanted pheasants 
and partridges in large numbers and killed off birds of 
prey, hawks, owls and even jays, lest they should fly at the 
game or steal their eggs. They preserved the fox for 
hunting, but the otter and badger were greatly reduced 
in numbers. You have spoken about the waterfowl, but 
their increase is very easily explained. Long ago when 
Man was at his highest state of civilisation, the marshes 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


39 

and lakes were drained, and the waterfowl deprived of 
places in which to breed. During the long afflictions and 
disturbances that we had to suffer, the drainage was neg¬ 
lected and choked, and the birds came back. Surely that 
is not any sign of man-sickness on the part of the earth ? ” 

But Hart’s obstinacy was proof against this kind of 
reasoning. 

“ Why,” he exclaimed, “ the argument is all on my side. 
Nature’s efforts according to your own story have been 
directed to get rid of Man and all the living things most 
closely associated with him. I have read enough to know 
the results of his interference. For every plant or animal 
that he brought into existence, Nature invented a disease 
or plague so that he was no better off than before. If this 
was not resentment on the part of the earth, I don’t know 
the meaning of the word. Besides, you have not explained 
the most terrible of all the phenomena, and that is, the 
deterioration of Man himself. Those outside our boundaries 
are travelling a path which we may have to follow one day. 
Just consider,” and Hart’s tone became more intense, “ the 
way in which Nature is showing her sickness of Man is 
to be studied in the children. If you wanted to exterminate 
the rats on a farm, what is the best way to do it ? Kill 
the females and encourage the males, who will soon end 
the race by fighting with one another. You know that not 
one of us understands the significance of what is happening 
among us. Nobody is killing now, but according to Dr. 
Turnbull’s investigations, there are three males born for 
every female, and a larger proportion of males than females 
is a sign that the race is doomed, whether it be a race of men 
or a race of birds.” 

Cecil, transparent and frank as a child, made no attempt 
to conceal his perturbation over the fact that male births 


4 o 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


had come to exceed those of females to an extraordinary 
extent. Yet he instinctively recoiled from the inference 
drawn. 

“ You jump too readily to a conclusion, Hart,” he said. 
“ You have not the learning any more than I to explain 
how this will work out, I cannot understand it, but the 
consequence is plain, especially as the preponderance of 
males is accompanied by a serious decrease in the number of 
births. If this excess on one side and decrease on the other 
should continue, the end of our little community is inevit¬ 
able. But is there no ground for hope in some of the other 
examples that you adduce ? When we say that the earth 
is clover-sick, we really mean that the soil is exhausted 
of the food needed by that plant. The husbandman does 
not say, ‘ It is the will of God ; the earth is angry with Man.’ 
No ! he ploughs up the clover-sick land, manures it, grows 
one or two other crops and then sows his clover again and 
it comes up as strongly as it did at first, showing that the 
refreshened earth is no longer clover-sick. So it may be 
with Man. My inclination is always to search first for the 
simple reason and to doubt any explanation that involves 
a miracle, or such an assumption as that the dead earth 
has human likes and dislikes. Who could believe that an 
inanimate clod, which brings forth thorns and thistles 
as indifferently as it does corn and poppies, has a will and 
a soul of its own ? To me it seems that the explanation 
must lie in the smallness of our numbers and the impossi¬ 
bility of bringing new blood into it.” 

Captain Hart was evidently far from being impressed 
by the sweet reasonableness of his friend and opponent. 
Turning to me with a subdued but pugnacious light in his 
eye he asked : “ Have you read much in the old newspapers 
published in the twentieth century ? Cecil tries to copy 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


their style. It was an era when lawyers, politicians and 
journalists contended with one another in the art of ex¬ 
plaining things away. As it has been a habit of mine to 
collect old journals I know what I am speaking about. 
Every year there was a repetition of omens and warnings 
that pointed to evil days coming to England. They went 
unheeded as the plagues of Egypt were unheeded by Pharaoh. 
It is the way of the world. As far as my little knowledge 
of history goes, there never was a nation, race or individual 
that heeded the warning voice telling of wrath to come. 
Wise-looking as they are in their pictures, the Egyptians 
had not the sense to listen to Moses. The lords and commons 
of England paid as little attention to their most popular 
general. Nobody felt disturbed when Roberts, stricken 
in years and grieving the loss of his only and most gallant 
son, gave the last of his days to preach the coming of a 
German war. So it was to be again and again till the day 
of utter ruin arrived. The only moral drawn from that 
great conflict was the self-flattery that whatever happened, 
England was bound to win. It was all in vain to point out 
how narrow had been the victory. Those who affected 
to be religious made the unanswerable reply that the Lord 
God of Battles had decided. It would have been irreverent 
to ask why He allowed it to be such a near thing. 

“ To the signs of the moment people always have been 
blind. How could it have been otherwise when their 
attention was concentrated on the two soul-killing pursuits 
—money-making and pleasure ? Every knee was bent to 
the almighty dollar. No other god had such e fishy 9 
devotees, but their * fishiness ’ was no bar to their occupancy 
of the highest offices of the State. If a man had money, 
no matter how it was made, he was eligible for any post. 
The sort of brain required for money-making has no 


42 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

corresponding value in statesmanship. At any rate, the rich 
of those days were the pagans, ignorant pagans for the most 
part, with a cultured one here and there who was worse 
than the others. Nor was the middle class any better. 
Constant striving to rise in the world, ceaseless fear lest 
they should fall, so engrossed them that they developed 
cunning, industry and parsimony at the expense of their 
higher faculties and became rank materialists. Nothing 
of the spirit remained. The only hope of regeneration 
lay in Labour, but its ancient ability to fend for itself was 
sapped by the system of doles and trade subsidies invented 
by vote-hunting politicians and by the spirit of Trades 
Unionism which banned everything like a full exertion 
of energy and paralysed the will to excel. 

“ It is not easy at this day to frame an exact picture of 
the England of that time or even one that would be credited. 
The newspapers are full of apparently contradictory features. 
So many pages are filled with descriptions of games and 
competitions that you wonder if there could have been 
even a minute portion of the people not engrossed in mere 
amusement. Each season had its distractions. Spectators 
assembled in huge crowds on the racecourse, at the cricket 
match, on the golf links, on the tennis courts, and at the 
boxing matches. Dramatic trash at the theatres, elegant 
skulduddery at the music-halls, coarse vulgarity at the 
cinema, had an equally potent attraction. To turn to 
other portions of the journal is to find equal cause for 
apprehension. To my mind it seems as though the Earth’s 
spirit had deliberately set about getting rid of the race 
by depriving them of the power or inclination to look a 
single day ahead.” 

As he paused, I ventured to ask for an account of the 
more important events in that tragic chapter of history 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 43 

that threatened to include the ruin, perhaps the complete 
extermination of the Human Race. 

“ It is too late to-night,” he replied wearily, “ and the 
recital is too melancholy. I would much rather you returned 
with me to the Settlement where my books and papers 
are kept. But where have you been that you do not know 
it all yourself ? ” 

“ If you care to listen, I will tell you my almost incredible 
story,” I replied, for the conviction was growing on me 
that his single-mindedness deserved to be met with candour. 
Besides, I was a little nettled at Cecil’s lack of interest in a 
story which might have been expected to appeal to his 
visionary turn of mind. In my grandfather’s circle every 
spiritual experience received rapt attention and the more 
extraordinary it seemed, the more readily it was believed. 
Cecil had in very kind and polite terms, it is true, but still 
plain terms, advised me to tell the story to an ignorant 
and childish member of the household. The memory 
rankled a little, hurt my vanity, my egoism, and I thought 
Hart might be more impressed. At the same time I felt 
he was narrower in mind and more of the plain soldier, with 
little of his friend’s width of sympathy and understanding, 
not at all the sort of man who readily absorbs ideas from 
without. Yet I made up my mind to tell him and he 
received the proposal heartily. “ We shall have plenty 
of time on the journey,” he said, “ and I’ll have an oppor¬ 
tunity of jotting down the principal heads and particulars.” 


V 


A VOYAGE UP THE REVERTED THAMES 

P HYSICALLY and mentally I touched the utmost 
extreme of discomfort on the journey up-stream. 
The morning was raw and wintry with a nipping wind 
and a moon staggering from one patch of cloud to another, 
so that the journey was not exactly a picnic. That was 
the least of it. Hart had insisted on my being protected 
from head to foot with pieces of ancient armour which 
obviously had never formed parts of the same suit. It 
seemed as though every inch of skin was being frayed at 
the same time. Hart was too much of a soldier to be 
sympathetic. 

“ You’ll soon get used to them,” was all his comment 
when I winced or complained. 

Then he was much taken up with managing the sail. 
It was a recent invention, “ an important step backward,” 
was his way of describing progress. You will easily imagine 
that all this did not conduce to a very sociable atmosphere. 

When the wind went down at dawn and the cold moon 
yielded place to a red, feeble sun, two rowers seized their 
oars and Captain Hart sat down at the tiller. 

“ Now for your story,” he said. “ There are several 
miles to row and plenty of time to tell it.” 

At another moment I would have lacked courage to tell 
44 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 45 

what must appear so monstrous; indeed, I had spent some 
time in trying to invent a method of conveying the facts 
so as not to startle him. I also wished to avoid being jeered 
at as a fool or shut up as a madman, but irritation made an 
end of prudence. 

It annoyed me to see Hart under so different an aspect; 
the thinker and patriot was transformed into a common¬ 
place petty commander. He wore his old armour with 
comfort if not with grace. He had none of my aches and 
sores, and he was evidently proud to stick up a square piece 
of cloth on his boat and call it a sail. 

I answered his invitation by complaining that it was 
not possible for me to do justice to my strange tale while 
I was shivering with cold and galled at a thousand points 
by the joints of the armour. Besides, he was as much taken 
up with the sail as a child with a new toy and I felt sure 
he could not listen patiently and intelligently. 

“ In my time, those who traversed the River of Pleasure 
used to vie with one another as to which could get the 
smartest and swiftest electric launch,” I said rather petu¬ 
lantly. It amazed me to find that our primitive craft was 
the only one on the water. 

Hart stared in a way to show that he had missed the 
purport, but he began explaining that he and his companions 
had been so glad at finding a protection from the stones 
that they never thought of the inconvenience of helmets 
and shirts of mail, and as they got accustomed to wearing 
them, they got into the knack of it. 

“ But tell me,” he asked, “ where is that other river, 
the River of Pleasure, did you call it ? on which you have 
seen much traffic. On the Thames we meet nothing 
afloat.” 

“ This was called the River of Pleasure two hundred 


46 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

years ago, and it was then that I saw it astir with yellow- 
sailed barges going up and down past the patient Cockney 
fisherman watching his float. Bank and stream, during the 
lazy days of summer resounded with the noise of merry girls 
which came from every conceivable form of boat, from 
the stationary houseboat to the dashing motor-launch.” 

“ You have read books and are dreaming,” he interjected, 
and my protesting was useless. “ All that was long ago 
and they are all dead. The infants at the breast then are 
dead now. No oldest man among us remembers. You 
may have heard the tale and recall the horror of it and the 
misery so vividly that you may perhaps have brooded over 
them till your mind has lost its balance-” 

As he hesitated, “ You shall have my full story if you 
like,” I said, “ and I will tell you of the England I lived in 
two hundred years ago.” 

He would not listen. “ Not now,” he said hastily and 
giving me a curious look, “ it would only vex me ; no help 
can come from the past. I was hoping for news from some 
far distant land. It isn’t believable that in the wide world 
there is no civilisation left except what you see here. I 
thought that you might have drifted from some other 
settlement. Just recently many of us have turned our 
thoughts in that direction. Earlier there was no time to 
attend to such a matter. During our youth it was all we 
could do to keep on living. Death from starvation was 
an everyday occurrence in the winter-time. My father 
used to say that he was thankful that it was no worse. He 
was brave, but he never denied that he nearly went out 
of his mind as many had done. Nobody dared work in 
the open fields. After the terror disappeared it was a 
hard job to get food-crops again on the neglected ground. 
We had to work like slaves, and famine, roving and raging 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 47 

like a wild beast, drove all else out of our beads. We did 
not realise what the great silence meant. Our young men 
are divided into two schools of thought in regard to this 
subject. One dreams of building ships and sailing to the 
places shown on ancient maps to search out surviving races, 
if there are any. Scepticism is the note of the other school. 
They doubt the existence of places with such beautiful 
names as America, Australia, India and Africa, and con¬ 
jecture that they exist only in fables. The more intelligent 
do not deny that there may have been some truth in the 
maps and geographies of which one or two copies have 
been preserved among our records, but suggest that by 
some cataclysm of Nature they may have been wiped out, 
else why do we not hear from them ? We seem to be 
separated from them as completely as we are separated from 
the dead ? ” 

“ And what is your opinion ? ” I asked, falling in with 
his mood and not ill-pleased to escape the need of telling 
my story to one plainly incapable of understanding it. 

“ Long before my day,” he replied, “ one or two things 
happened that encouraged a belief that it was only one 
civilisation that had been destroyed. When we get home 
I will show you copies and messages that seem to have 
been despatched by fugitives making a last desperate effort 
to get home. Probably there were more of them than have 
been discovered. One was found not long ago. It was a 
piece of paper enclosed in a bottle with an air-tight glass 
stopper. When cleansed of an encrustation formed on 
its surface, the glass showed itself to be transparent and 
inside one could just see in old-fashioned script a word 
which looked like ‘ submarine ’ and a date which we took 
to be November, 2085. More we never learned. A rash 
lad, finding it difficult to undo the stopper, smashed it 


48 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

against a stone and shook out the paper, but it fell in dust, 
probably having been made partly of clay, as I find was 
not unusual. The messages taken up in early days could 
be read easily and several copies of each were made as a 
precaution against the Joss or decay of the original. As 
we have to thread our way now between mud-islands which 
continually change in size and form, I must give my atten¬ 
tion to steering, but you shall see those messages when 
we get home. They gave me an idea that elsewhere in the 
world communities such as ours may be holding out. I 
felt sure you had come from one of them.” 

You will easily understand that no extensive view is 
possible from a rather flat-bottomed boat as it is laboriously 
rowed up a slow-flowing river. On each shore there was 
a fringe or belt of withered sedges interspersed with drooping 
rushes; behind, were willows and alders. It may have 
been pretty in spring and summer, but at this time the 
withered herbage had been knocked about by storm and 
flood, and in parts was half buried in mud. Behind, were 
bare forest trees, ash, oak and beech mostly. For the 
greater part of the journey there were no signs of human 
life. Hart had told me that although the wood-dwellers up 
stream were hardier than those who frequented the river 
lower down, they suffered much in winter and kept near 
the Settlement, picking up what morsels of food came their 
way. Birds were in plenty, especially wild swans and 
mallards. On the land rabbits skipped about and a few 
deer grazed fearlessly. Yet we were not a quiet party, as 
the boatman chanted some doggerel verses, river chanties 
you might call them, keeping time with their oars. One 
of them recited each crude and simple verse, and then it 
was sung in chorus. Some of the words I afterwards 
jotted down as well as I could from memory. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


49 


Pull away ! Pull away ! Pull away ! 

Strong is the stream and stormy the weather, 

But rowing is light if you pull all together, 

Pull away ! Pull away ! Pull awayjj 

Pull away ! Pull away ! Pull away ! 

If you remember that home you are going, 

Arms will not tire with the hardest of rowing. 

Pull away ! Pull away ! Pull away ! 

The leader seemed to be a bit of a wag, as, after taking 
a minute or two longer between the verses, he extemporised 
the following reference to the stranger in their midst: 

Pull away ! Pull away ! Pull away ! 

There’s one here that swears when this journey is ended, 

He will not come again till his irons are mended. 

Pull away ! Pull away ! Pull away ! 

During the journey this kind of singing had gone on 
by fits and starts. I had not paid much attention to the 
frequent interruptions, being indeed much occupied with 
my own discomfort and general irritation. When it 
stopped this time I could not help wondering why, especially 
as there came an exclamation and what I had not heard 
before, an emphatic oath from Hart. “ Even the damned 
river,” he said, “ is like the rest of creation, sick of man ! ” 

Previous to the war, I had a slight acquaintance with 
the river through occasionally visiting a relation who used 
to live most of the summer in a house situated not far from 
Medmenham Abbey. We used often to go out rowing 
or punting, and once made a journey in a rowing boat 


50 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

as far up as Oxford. But it was only now that I realised 
what a very artificial water it used to be. Lovers of Nature 
have often spoken lyrically of its beauty and its exquisite 
surroundings. London’s river deserved the best that could 
be said about its broad waters, rustic banks, green country, 
sedges, rushes and wild flowers. Now that Nature had 
it all her own way she produced these things as lavishly 
as ever, but also played a thousand tricks. Here she had 
planted an island right in the middle of the stream. 

“ Made by silt,” Hart exclaimed gruffly, “ and the 
cursed willow trees,” he added, “ just look at that! ” 

It needed but a glance to understand the cause of his 
vexation. The narrower of the two channels into which 
this island divided the river was also the deeper. It alone 
was navigable. Apparently the stream had been eroding 
the land near it, while at the same time it was depositing 
silt in its companion channel to such an extent that the 
willows which had rooted themselves in the island had 
invaded the river bed where there was least stream, causing 
it to rise higher and higher. The willows on the land had 
grown and spread out till they met those from the island 
and formed a vast withy-bed. In fact, Thames, during the 
neglect of two centuries, had been slowly changing his 
course by filling up a channel at one place and deepening 
and widening one in another. The immediate trouble was 
that a huge tree with a stem well over a hundred feet in 
length and of corresponding thickness lay straight across 
the channel up which the boat should go. 

Hart lost his politeness and showed no sympathy with 
my disinterested curiosity when I inquired how the tree 
could possibly have got into the position in which we found 
it, and he only muttered about a fool being able to ask 
questions that a wise man could not answer. 


VI 


A ROWER TELLS WHY IT WAS ALWAYS GROWING HARDER 
TO NAVIGATE THE THAMES, AND THE CAPTAIN^ DAUGHTER 
HAS A NARROW ESCAPE FROM THE WOODLANDERS 

O NE of the rowers, whose job was to steady the boat 
while the others worked at the willow tree, the same 
man who had put a verse about me into the river ditty, 
was more communicative. He explained that the willow 
had been aground for more than a year a mile or so farther 
up. How it had got loose and floated down to its present 
awkward position he did not know. “ Some of the water 
devils may have meddled with it.” 

“ But how could such a large tree get into the water ? ” 
I asked in bewilderment. 

“ Oh, that’s easy explained,” he replied. “ Further up 
the stream is eating into forest land. Many big forest trees 
grow on the bank and when the river comes to one it begins 
washing at the earth round its roots getting ready for the 
flood which never fails to come. It sends a swirl of water into 
the pit already hollowed out and carries the earth away by 
tons at a time. After this happens again and again the big 
roots are laid bare. Then comes the wind, blowing and 
swishing and rocking the tree and loosening the soil till 
there is needed only a long spell of wet weather, a higher 
flood and a strong gale; down falls the tree ! Good luck 

5i 


52 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

and firewood to us if it lies on the bank, but if it drops 
into the water the flood rolls it away like a plaything till 
the willows catch it in their long arms. After that it 
may get shifted about by wind and water, or, if a little 
bit of it touches the bottom it is held there and the river 
gradually buries it in silt and nothing is left except a snag 
or two to play old Harry with the fisherman’s line.” 

“ But the river is changing in many other ways, is it not •? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” he replied. “ I am not an old man, only 
six and thirty last May, but I’ve travelled up and down it 
for five and twenty years and it is harder work every time. 
It’s the bottom that worries us more than the logs. You 
can shift a log or go round it, but the floods come worse 
and worse and after a big one you never know what to 
expect. Sometimes it is a new mud-island ; the one we 
are coming to is not ten years old. I mind seeing it the 
first time. One of these soft trees used to overhang there 
and under it the mud collected and things grew, and there 
you are. Such an island has often been made by one flood 
and cleared away by another.” 

Here he was called for a moment from my side. Those 
who had left him in charge of the boat while they worked 
with oars and other wooden levers, in order to move the 
tree-trunk round far enough to let the boat pass, now 
urgently needed his help. 

The man had a clever, original face, and I was glad to 
renew our talk when the chance occurred. 

“ They always put me in charge of the boat at times 
like these,” he said, “ and to speak the truth, there are worse 
jobs if you’ve been handling the oar for twenty miles or 
so. It is a bad wind that blows good to nobody, though 
the Captain might not like to hear me say it. He always 
gets into a stew because of the lass.” 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 53 

“ Do you often get such a big one ? ” I asked, indicating 
the huge trunk floating athwart the channel. 

“ When she’s in flood this is nothing to her,” he replied. 
“ I’ve seen her float away a cow, a cottage and a milkmaid 
all in a heap as you might say, and she rolls stones as big 
as men along the bottom when her blood’s up. They 
drop into the deep holes, and you can see them in summer 
when the water is low and clear.” 

He stopped in answer to a command to bring the stern 
round to the obstacle. 

Then he went on : “ I’ve known her in all hours and in 
all tempers off and on all my life. The Captain says 
Father Thames, but I say Mother, and why not ? In my 
young days when an empty belly was commoner than it 
is now, you could get a fish, and if it were only an eel or 
one o’ them thick-skinned perches, it was cooked and eaten 
before you could say knife. Many’s the duck and swan 
I’ve snared in her. The Captain often in rough winter 
afternoons reads to us bits from the old books and papers 
he collects and shows us pictures and tells how clean and 
neat she used to be kept in the days when kings and queens 
lived on her banks at a place called Windsor, but in my 
opinion she’s cleaner now than she was then. She may 
float down dead, sometimes rotten, bodies of cats and dogs, 
cows and pigs, but she makes away with them in the end. 
If they drop into a hole she brings soil to cover them ; 
if they get stranded on the mud the queer-looking, devil¬ 
like wild folk down there eat them as fishes eat them when 
carried out to sea. But she likes best to bury them, and 
if you could drain away the water and lift the mud, many 
a curious thing you might come across. 

“ My grandfather used to swear to the truth of a story 
repeated by many of the old folk ; it was that the people of 


54 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

this country, all but a few, once went totally mad. They 
were driven to it by years of fighting and hunger and wounds 
and misery, for they had begun to quarrel among them¬ 
selves and kill one another before the armies came over the 
sea to make a finish. Well, they went mad and bands of 
them swore to end war by destroying everything used for 
killing. They burnt what would take flame, but all kinds 
of iron and metal gear they flung into the Thames. It’s 
no wonder we talk of the river as if a thing with human 
life, for it was fly enough to hide the guns, knives, pistols 
and machinery tossed to it, and then after many years 
it began to show them again. You never know when the 
swirling water is going to heap mud into a new island, 
or when it is going to scrape out a new hole, but at this 
moment I could take you to a place where it has changed 
its course and left dry a great heap of tanks, the Captain 
calls them, rushed into it by those mad peace-makers of 
the long ago.” 

He was one of the talkative sort and would have con¬ 
tinued indefinitely, but the obstacle to the boat’s progess had 
been levered into a position that let the boat slip past it, the 
oarsmen had come back to their rowlocks, and Captain 
Hart sat down at the helm, stiff, straight-backed, vigilant—a 
grim steersman. It was no wonder that the men rowed 
silently. They knew better than I did at the time what 
good cause he had for hatred and anxiety. Yet even in 
that moment he did not lose his habitual courtesy. 

“ I spoke to you roughly a while ago,” he said, “ I am 
sorry. You did not deserve it. My daughter—a trap-” 

He stopped and said no more, but I never saw a motion 
so full of menace as that with which he drew a loaded rifle 
across his knees. 

It was a tense moment even to an onlooker who could 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 55 

only make a guess at the facts. Hart had a daughter, 
that was plain enough, and it needed no telling that he 
was fond of her. Imagination filled in the details. The 
men were tired with a long stiff row, and I was hungry 
enough to know that they must be more so. 

Food could not be plentiful. What was given came 
from a little store. It was not the bestowal of an overplus, 
but such a division as might have been made in a beleagured 
city where the provident had very little more than was 
necessary, but willingly underwent some privation to save 
some at least of the improvident from utter starvation. 
This diagnosis was confirmed when, as I was relieving at 
the oar an oldish man, who was near the point of exhaustion, 
a chance occurred of putting a question to my previous 
informant. 

“ I suppose Captain Hart’s daughter often comes to meet 
her father ? ” 

He only nodded an affirmative with a glance at Hart, 
whose keen eye searched the bank and the stream, while 
his hands held the gun in readiness. 

The spell was broken in a way that surprised everybody. 
We were approaching a point where the current was again 
divided in two by one of those mud-islands which were 
always occurring. It formed a picturesque feature. On 
the right, the water flowed in a vigorous stream clear of 
wreck and obstacle. On the left, it had formed a huge 
pool as smooth as a mill-pond. Thames at the point 
had built up a natural dam. Two or three huge trees 
brought down in a flood stretched like a mill dam from 
the island to the mainland. In their journey the great 
boughs with their innumerable twigs had caught thousands 
of the branches, stakes, turf, witherings, herbage and agri¬ 
cultural implements picked up from a wide inundation. 


56 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

A great jam had occurred, and it was strengthened and 
consolidated by the mud and refuse that continued to be 
carried down when the waters were abating. Thus such 
navigation as there was had to go by the narrower channel 
as the other was completely blocked. The bank was covered 
with bushes and seedling trees at various stages of growth, 
so that the general effect was something like that of the 
wilderness which was used to form part of the grounds of 
an English country house. But this was absolutely wild, 
whereas the other was Nature made to look wild. In 
summer it must have afforded perfect concealment, and 
even in winter self-sown groups of holly and other ever¬ 
greens and the broom and gorse made respectable cover. 
As we turned a bend in the stream we could see shapes of 
men slipping into the dense thickets, as if they did not 
like the boat, a conspicuous object indeed advancing up¬ 
stream. 

Hart’s gun was instantaneously levelled, but he did not 
fire. “ They are waiting; they have not found her,” 
he said, with a natural voice, but a rather shame-faced 
air of apology. “ I could have ticked them off like rabbits, 
but she would not like it, for though the baggage is hardier 
than any of the men, she has a soft heart and cries like a 
baby every time I wipe out a river-man. But I wonder 
what’s happened. An iron chain would not hold her 
back from meeting us with breakfast when she knows that 
we are coming home.” 

Then, at a signal, three of the six oarsmen laid aside 
their oars and took up guns. I moved into one of the 
empty seats so that there were four rowers and, including 
Hart, four armed guards as we drew to the entrance of 
the narrow passage. Apparently the river-folk had a 
wholesome respect for firearms. With wonderful speed 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 57 

and dexterity they glided from one covering of bush to 
another, thus rapidly increasing the distance between us. 

We were pulling hard, but making slow progress against 
the stream, yet the toil did not prevent my attention being 
caught by the dismal croak of a raven sounding close at 
hand. Hart started with what appeared to me very un¬ 
necessary surprise as I had noticed several of these birds 
hunting for garbage along the muddy edges of the stream, 
and had been thinking that the bird had thriven in the 
absence of human enemies. The effect on Hart was to 
make him raise his gun in the direction of the flying men, 
saying something to the effect that it would make them 
scurry off the quicker. But the raven continued to croak. 

“ That’s her, but where can she be ? ” said Hart, and 
he told the boatmen to stop rowing and let the boat drift 
down stream. They turned it and rowed with the 
stream. | 

It was not until the nose of the boat passed the extreme 
point of the island, which indeed was little more than a 
long, irregularly-shaped wall of mud on which willows and 
herbage had taken root, that the raven’s cry changed into 
an outburst of the jolliest young laughter. It came from 
the throat of a young woman just out of girlhood who was 
floating on the slow water riding astride a great tree-trunk 
that she had managed to push away from its bearings. 
Her witless water-horse seemed to possess only one volition, 
and this was a desire to roll over and over. If the rider 
for a moment had remembered her dignity, she would 
have been ridiculous, but her sense of fun intensified by 
a feeling of relief made her explode in peals of laughter as, 
like a great unwieldy animal, the shapeless trunk would 
dip and roll all the more as she made attempts to prevent 
it. Her clothing was scanty, and her only ornament her 


58 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

long hair, coloured like the first tint that autumn gives to 
beech leaves. 

“ Don’t trouble about me, daddy, I’ll swim,” she said, 
suiting the action to the word and striking out with a farewell 
kick to her improvised canoe. 

“ You must go round by the way you were going and 
get my little boat,” she said, and hurriedly told how she 
had eyed the would-be robbers before they saw her. For 
concealment she had chosen the half-choked channel through 
which she had made her way by stepping on the more 
solid debris and alternately climbing and swimming. Only 
her little boat had been left behind. 

All hands now turned to the oars. Hart steered, and it 
was insisted that I had done my share and was entitled to 
rest. 

Cheered by the prospect of food, they sent the boat 
along briskly. Although brought up where food was almost 
too plentiful, I sympathised with their feeling. It was a 
revelation that the supply of food was so little beyond the 
demands of necessity that the simplest meal was enjoyed as 
a feast. Well it might be ! In this case every member 
of the company had eaten very sparsely at starting so as 
not to decrease unduly the store at Cecil’s disposal, and 
they had worked long and hard in the cold morning air. 
I who had done least was hungry enough to sympathise 
with them. 


VII 


A MEAL ON A RIVER ISLAND, AFTER WHICH THERE IS SINGING 

and Captain Hart tells as a piece of far-off history 
how the British Fleet was lost 

O F all the forms of reversion I had yet observed, the 
return to simplicity of eating was the most accept¬ 
able. It is pleasant even now to recall the repast which 
Bessie had ready for us on a little island only a short row 
from the channel. Thanks to an early start, a light break¬ 
fast, a nipping air on the river and the happy ending of an 
exciting adventure, I, like the others, was thoroughly 
ready for it. And the girl was one of those who bring 
exhilaration into any company. It was evident that there 
were no artificial distinctions when she was present. She 
spoke to the men calling them Tom, Willie, Harry, Nick ; 
telling each of the small occurrences when they were away. 
Her news was mostly about animals: Boxer and Rattler, 
her horses; Nigger, a dog for certain ; Mabel, from her 
context was most certainly a cow, and Archibald a goat. 
At any rate, there was a smile and a word for each. In reply 
they called her Bessie, as children use Christian names to 
their schoolfellows. 

Though a stranger, I was not left out. Probably she 
never thought of my being a stranger, for as you know from 
the books of chivalry, a man in old armour is not easily 

59 


6o THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


identified. She only expressed a friendly hope that I was 
not very tired after the cold journey and long fast. Her 
voice was very sweet and clear, though the pronunciation 
like that of the other inhabitants, was to my ear strange 
and quaint. Mine doubtless sounded equally foreign to 
her, especially as I felt it had a hollow and sepulchral quality 
due to the novelty of having to speak into an iron pot. 
She gave me a little puzzled and surprised look, as if she 
had not been able to make out my words, though all I 
said was that the interest of the voyage more than repaid 
me for any discomfort. 

Her father offered the apparently simple but really mis¬ 
leading explanation that I was a stranger who had come 
from a great distance. She smiled a cordial welcome 
and never thought of asking whether the distance was one 
of time or space. 

All was changed when we landed on the island. The 
others seemed as glad as I was to get rid of the jingling 
old armour, and we entered a little sheltered dell where 
the food was waiting. A glance of wonder flitted over 
her speaking face when she beheld me stripped of my accou¬ 
trement, but it went as quickly as it came, and she became 
instantly busy opening the baskets of wickerwork and giving 
each what she knew he preferred. 

“ You like cold meat and barley brew,” she said to one, 
handing them as she spoke; “ and you cold bacon, and 
you rabbit pie, and this is for you, daddy.” Finally she 
came to me. “ I’ve done this so often, I know what most 
of them prefer,” she said, “ but what would you like ? A 
slice of ham, a pasty with meat and vegetables in it, or a 
rabbit pie ? ” 

I chose the last-mentioned and chose well, for the pie 
excellently cooked with tender pork and eggs and vege- 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 61 


tables, would have tempted any appetite. It was served 
with slices of bread from a large, thick, crusted loaf made 
of whole meal. 

Owing to being so much engrossed in my one paramount 
task, I have come less into contact with women than is 
customary with men of my age, but one thing I had noticed, 
that a good, motherly woman, whatever her age, is particu¬ 
larly happy when serving to men of keen appetite food of 
her own cooking. Bessie was evidently in her glory when 
she was administering to the wants of each and encouraging 
them to eat. 

“ We have little choice of drink to offer you,” she said, 
“ only mead or ale ; which do you prefer ? ” 

The frothing home-made beer was as good as it was 
tempting, so I concluded that all the arts of civilisation 
had not been lost. The party became merry after the 
hunger was appeased. Pipes were lit and the air was per¬ 
fumed with the smoke of tobacco grown on English soil. 

“ Now they will break into song,” said Hart. “ It is 
a diversion first taken up to help pass away the long winter 
evenings, but no occasion is missed for it now. The kind 
of song they like best is one with plenty of questions and 
answers, and bits where everybody joins in. Listen, they 
are starting on an old favourite.” 

As he spoke, the boatmen were talking to one another 
so that each should know when to take up his part. The 
result was effective in a childlike, primitive way. The 
words ran like this, and the lilt or chant might have been 
suggested by the old-fashioned children’s game: How 
many miles to Babylon ? 

First Singer : 

When the onset came from the coloured men, 

Who was the King of England then ? 


62 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


Second Singer: 

There were two Kings of England when 
The onset came from the coloured men. 

Third Singer : 

Who were these Kings of England when 
The onset came from the coloured men ? 

All : 

One was the King by long descent, 

He opened and closed the Parliament, 

Presided at every royal feast, 

And pinned the ribbon on the hero’s breast. 

A ruler, he himself was ruled, 

A figure that moved when the string was pulled. 
Chorus : 

Not fit for war and too good for trade ! 

Of what sort of stuff was the other one made ? 
Second Singer: 

The other had made his own renown, 

As winner of votes in country and town ; 

None could resist the enchanting spell 
Which had power alike over heaven and hell. 

He could melt them to tears o’er a dead man’s urn 
Or make public butter in his silver churn. 

Nothing he owed to sire or dame 
But toughly pushed his way to fame, 

Not his to wield the gun or sword 
He trusted all to the power of the Word. 

Oft as he needed he turned his coat 
As the devious way to success he sought. 

He could make words flatter, deceive, enthrall, 

Till his hearers forgot he had changed at all. 

He slyly smiled as they made the air ring 
With cheers, for the Master of Words as King. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 63 
Chorus : 

The dark men swimming under the sea, 

Laughed at such kings with savage glee. 

“ And which of you made this excellent song ? ” I asked 
Hart. 

“ There’s a wonderful story attached to that,” he replied. 
“ Four brothers, who were among the original founders 
of our Settlement and lived to patriarchal age in it—they 
are buried on the Hillock of the Dead which you will see 
as you enter our town—were brave and daring aviators 
in their youth. They had a narrow escape. After being 
forced to the ground, they used their last bomb to destroy 
their aeroplane. Most likely it was assumed by their 
pursuers that they were killed, but it was not so. They 
hid in some caves which they knew of in Scotland, far north, 
on a rocky part of the east coast. No inhabitant seemed 
to be left in that part of the country, but they found stores 
of potatoes which they collected at night. Many an hour 
that otherwise would have hung heavy was passed in making 
and singing songs of which the ballad you heard was one. 
You might almost guess that by the reference to submarines. 
The young people of to-day think it is a sign of dotage 
to talk of ancestors who could fly through the air or swim 
under the sea. You do not know, or you have forgotten 
our history ? ” 

Here he gave me a look in which inquiry was blended with 
a pity I did not understand till later. I assured him of my 
complete ignorance. 

“ Well,” he replied, “ while they are singing another 
song or two let us take a turn round this small island and 
I will tell you a story that has been handed down for several 
generations. Things had come to a sad pass in England 
before the final calamity. Discipline had been undermined 


6 \ THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

by the introduction of Trade Union methods into 
all the fighting services. Cynics said it did not matter 
since the continental countries and America too were in 
the same plight. Indeed, the last war with Germany had 
been ignominiously ended by the armies refusing to con¬ 
tinue fighting. The whole civilised world was shaken and 
alarmed. No avenue was open to the establishment of 
enduring peace. Yet they say no ordinary observer would 
have guessed it in England. 

“ The country was greatly impovished, but in war there 
are always some who find an easy way to riches. Attention 
was diverted from national affairs to the most trivial 
sporting rivalries. Crowds for racing, crowds for cricket 
and football matches, crowds on the golf-course and the 
tennis lawn, showed how the energy of Great Britain was 
dissipated in games when it was so sorely needed to save 
the country from ruin. The time continued to be one of 
wars and rumours of wars. Among those supposed to 
know it was whispehed that a colossal alliance was being 
made of yellow men, brown men and black men, who 
aimed at nothing less than ousting the white races from the 
superior position assumed by them since the invention 
of gunpowder. It would take long to enumerate the 
signs that ought to have caused the people of this country 
to take the matter more seriously. The body corporate 
resembled an old man afflicted with many diseases. One 
gets accustomed to see him going about limping and wheezing, 
groaning and grumbling, but as he manages to survive 
from day to day his complaints seem to belong to his per¬ 
sonality like the colour of his eyes or the length of his nose, 
and nobody realises that owing to the accumulation of all 
these diseases the inevitable end is daily coming nearer. 

“ The few who saw grounds for anxiety were reassured 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 65 

by a great Admiral of the time. His name was Hood, and 
though not a direct descendant, he was related to the 
family of that name celebrated in naval annals. His ad¬ 
mirers worshipped him as a worthy successor to the great 
seamen of the past, Drake, Frobisher, Nelson and Colling- 
wood, Fisher and Beatty. Of these he most resembled 
Fisher, and just before the great catastrophe he quoted 
with approval a speech made by his illustrious predecessor, 
in which he bade his countrymen sleep soundly in their beds. 
In the teeth of enormous difficulties, of which the most 
formidable was a growing antipathy to military and naval 
preparations on the part of the population, he had managed 
to maintain the Navy both as regards men and ships. Hood 
followed the traditions of the Fisher school to which he 
belonged and was credited with the qualities that were then 
thought the essentials of a great sea-commander. He was 
bloody, bold and resolute, fierce and cunning, regardless 
of usage and precedent when they did not fall in with 
his plans and unscrupulous in the means he adopted for 
discovering hostile movements and intentions. 

“ Those who looked up for a moment from their racing 
and their cricket, or from the still more arduous pursuit of 
money, smiled with confidence, thanked God we had a 
Navy and dived back to their favourite pursuits in which 
they were soon so immersed as to forget all about national 
danger. On the very morning in which it was known that 
Hood had assembled the Navy in Scapa Flow the paper 
had leaders on what I understand had been the subject 
of long controversy— c Can a Professional Player be a 
Gentleman ? 9 It is almost unbelievable, yet true, that 
this was typical of the folly with which the country gave 
itself up to the discussion of such puerilities when the 
terrible hour drew nearer and nearer. 


66 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


“ No alarm was felt during the next four and twenty 
hours; it was given out by a Government addicted to 
deception that Hood was only experimenting in rapid 
mobilisation. That did not allay or mitigate the uneasiness 
caused by the absence of any foreign news in the papers. 
It grew with the announcement that there had been a 
breakdown in the wireless, a breakdown that before the 
day was over was learned to be universal. Still it was no 
more than uneasiness. Through a semi-official channel 
it was intimated that the Government had taken possession 
of all means of communication with foreign countries. 
No one was permitted to telegraph to Paris or any other 
place on the continent. Still confidence was not greatly 
shaken. 4 Cunning old dog, the Prime Minister ! 5 4 As 

wily as they make them ! ’ 4 Getting a surprise packet 

ready ! 1 were some of the exclamations made till it rapidly 
got about that all our wireless installations had been de¬ 
stroyed. Then came the news that bands of workmen 
had destroyed the telegraph and telephone lines. 

44 Someone said perhaps it was a well-planned Bolshevist 
rising, and this explanation flew round, gathering definition 
and detail as it passed from mouth to mouth. Not till 
every ear was arrested by a noise of firing in the North 
Sea did some dawning of the truth appear through the 
official concealment. Those of military experience who 
heard the firing said that they had never listened to such 
explosions before ; others asserted that they shook cathe¬ 
drals and set the bells ringing miles away. But the hitherto 
inert population now turned the other way, and accounts 
written when imagination was inflamed by terror are not 
to be trusted. 

“ I have been a diligent collector of letters and other 
documents, but have scarcely anything that bears on this 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 67 

tragedy. Most of them are from fugitives to other fugi¬ 
tives hurriedly written near scenes of rapine. The most 
authentic information is contained in a letter to the King 
from an officer in Admiral Hood’s flagship. It had been 
carried across the Pentland Firth by a sailor who happened 
to be an Orcadian. When the officer’s boat was attacked 
and those on board it foully murdered, he escaped by jumping 
overboard. Others jumped overboard too when they saw 
their friends killed with pitiless ferocity, they being unarmed. 
They were drowned, but the young man was a good swimmer, 
made a long dive and escaped to his native Stromness. 
He saw the town in flames, and without landing, got aboard 
a small fishing boat which he found tied by its painter to 
a rock in a cave occasionally made use of by fishermen. 
It luckily had a sail, and the wind favouring he managed 
to cross the Pentland in safety, landing near the small 
town of Thurso. 

“ There seemed to have been a separate landing in the 
north, and the barbarians were carrying fire and sword 
through the country in the madness produced by a first 
taste of blood. The young man was clever and determined. 
He survived to be one of the founders of this Settlement. 
After surmounting danger that would have stopped anybody 
else he got through. Dr. Turnbull has the original letter 
and a transcription made before the paper began to moulder, 
and will show it to you. 

“ All I have to say just now is that the Admiral, like the 
sea-dog he was, stuck to the ship and went down with it. 
Nobody could accuse him of cowardice. He died, mechani¬ 
cally repeating the words that had been on his lips from the 
beginning of the action : ‘ The nigger has gone one better.’ 
Some think his last words unworthy of his fame, but I do 
not agree. He appears to have planned a surprise, but had 


68 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


been anticipated. The coloured men made their voyage in 
submarines which carried their aircraft and the new ex¬ 
plosive which they either stole or discovered. Some 
people found an unnecessary contempt in the use of the 
word 4 nigger,’ but Admiral Hood was only doing what all 
the Englishmen of his time did. He applied the word 
to all except the white races. It was exactly like our reck¬ 
less countrymen to catch up the phrase and say : 4 The 
nigger has gone one better.’ whenever they fell into a trap 
or got the worst of a fray. The commonplace phrase caught 
men’s imagination so that they turned it into a kind of 
adage, and when they are worsted at anything exclaim : 
4 The nigger has gone one better.’ It has remained in use 
till this day.” 

“ But where was Admiral Hood’s secret service ? Such 
a gigantic surprise is incredible ! ” I exclaimed. 

44 Affairs took their usual course,” he replied ; 44 first 

stage : public meetings, hot air, terrible threats, more 
boasting—this is for propaganda and is accounted bluster ; 
second stage : dead calm, enemy has got his forces, spends 
years organising them, all the time gets soothing news into 
the papers. Wiseacres say : 4 1 told you so,’ and people 
go on with their games and politics, their silly betting and 
their racing ; third stage : the bolt falls and the fools and 
triflers are struck dumb with surprise ! ” 

I fain would have asked Captain Hart for more particulars 
and explanations, but all of a sudden he stopped, bit his 
lip and became taciturn, as if more moved than he cared 
to show over the description of what must have been to 
him a far-off tragedy. During the narrative he had tried 
to assume the detached indifferent tone of a spectator or 
historian, but he could not altogether suppress the fire of 
excitement and grief. When he spoke again, it was to give 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 69 

directions to the men. His daughter, who knew his moods, 
gave me a look of reproach even at the very moment when 
she skilfully drew the conversation in her own direction as 
if fearful that I should try to lead him back to a theme that 
after all the years remained distressing. 

She was relieved when I reassured her by starting an 
altogether new topic. The mention of Dr. TurnbulPs name 
had made me curious. 

“ So you have a school of medicine ? ” I said, presuming 
that he had a medical degree. But she answered with a 
laugh that they had not got so far as that. They just 
called him doctor because he was a man learned in the 
use of herbs and simples, in a way self-taught, though he 
was not only keeper of the books but one who diligently 
read them. He was almost a hereditary doctor, as the 
first of his name in the Settlement had been a doctor, and 
there was always one of his descendants ready to step into 
the shoes of him who had gone before. Upon my venturing 
to say that there could not be much need for doctors in a 
community where the members lived a simple patriarchal 
life she shook her head in denial. On the contrary, there 
was always somebody ill she said, and on my asking what 
was the most prevalent form of illness she at once said : 
“ Insanity,” to my very great astonishment. 

“ It is our heritage from war and suffering beyond human 
endurance,” she exclaimed. “ I do not like to talk of such 
horrors, but Dr. Turnbull will explain to you how minds 
were shaken when bravery was of no use and human beings 
were like minnows in the river when a great pike rushes 
upon a shoal and you may see them in their panic rising 
half out of the water and scudding blindly they know 
not whither. Some went mad with fear, some grew de¬ 
mented with the terrific concussions, some wandering 

F 


7 ° 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


hungry and terror-stricken, lost their senses. There were 
heroes in England then, but my Uncle Turnbull, who knows 
the archives, will tell you that the nerves of the stoutest 
were broken at last and their children and children’s children 
went about with fear in their hearts like furtive, trembling 
animals. Can it be wondered at that their descendants 
should be liable to loss of reason, the most awful of human 
calamities ? ” 

Bessie, I felt sure, was naturally of a gay and cheerful 
disposition, but nothing is more contagious than earnestness. 
How often has one seen it happen when a crowd of elegant 
triflers have been exchanging quips and witticisms over a 
grave subject that when one who has thought out the 
question and recognises its gravity intervenes with ever so 
quiet a voice, he produces an immediate change of atmo¬ 
sphere ? Those who were playing on the surface, or at 
least, many of them, at once begin to look into the depths. 
In suchwise, Bessie’s sympathetic nature had swept her 
into her father’s mood. Yet when I asked what form 
mental disease usually assumed, she said that compara¬ 
tively few became raging maniacs. A disease popularly 
called the “ shuddering sickness ” was the most common. 
It was intermittent in character, and was in the nature of 
a delusion. Many believed its cause to be indigestion, 
but her uncle was not convinced that the physical and 
mental symptoms were in the relation of cause and effect. 
The patient was terrified because he imagined himself 
threatened by Shapes, vague figures that he would not 
describe during the attack and could not after it had passed 
away. He would weep, shudder, pray for mercy and behave 
generally like one in great fear. Sometimes he would 
climb into a dark hayloft, or dive down into a cellar, as 
if to escape, but he invariably returned in terror, wailing 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 71 

that they followed him. There were less hideous delusions. 
A common case was for a man to think himself a man from 
a book. 

“ I help my uncle,” she said, “ and in the winter nights 
we get up entertainments, reading, reciting and singing. 
Every now and then a man or woman of weak mind will 
take to believing that he or she is a character in the story 
and often that delusion lasts for a long time.” 

She kept talking about one thing or another till we came 
in sight of a rudely made jetty. It was of rough timber, 
but just above it was an equally rough breakwater made 
of a pile of stones and boulders to protect the jetty when the 
water was in flood. Everybody in the boat at once grew 
as busy as passengers on a great Atlantic liner when the 
Mersey is entered, and I alone was idle. I was glad to 
be so as the scene was interesting. Many friends, male and 
female, had come to meet the boat, and the air was soon thick 
with greetings and exclamations of thankful relief such as 
the average Englishman would consider more than were 
necessary had he just arrived from a journey round the 
world. But so greatly do values change with circumstances, 
that a row to the mouth of a river was of more importance, 
mainly because it was more dangerous with them than a 
voyage to Japan with us. 


VIII 


An exploration of the Settlement they call New 
London : a pioneer and his epitaph 

W HILE the memory of it is fresh, I am setting down 
the story of my first day’s experience of life among 
the ordinary inhabitants of the Settlement, which they 
called New London. I will not detain you with any 
account of the hospitality extended to me by Captain Hart. 
He was one of those who make their guests welcome to 
whatever they have, neither apologising for what is lacking 
nor boasting of what is on the table. After a breakfast 
that began with oatmeal porridge and goat’s milk, and 
ended with a slice of home-made bread washed down with 
a cup of mead, he and his daughter on two small but stout 
shaggy ponies rode away on their own business, and I was 
left by myself. 

I began the day by a roam round the neighbourhood. 
First I climbed what appeared to be the highest point of 
the Downs that lay near, thinking it possible in that way 
to catch sight of some prominent object that would give 
me a key to my whereabouts. The project ended in dis¬ 
appointment. The course of the Thames could be followed 
up and down for miles, but only as a gleam of water through 
a screen of leafless trees. As far as I could see, every house, 
church and landmark had disappeared from its banks. No 
72 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 73 

boats were on its surface and the low-lying ground through 
which it flowed was covered with water. Looking across 
country the prospect was that of a wilderness of scrub and 
woodland. As far as vision went, it had engulfed such 
new houses as had been built. To one who never had 
been a frequent visitor, far less a native of the district, the 
contour of the country or the windings of the river were 
not sufficient to give a clue. 

My interest baulked in one direction was gratified in 
another. While still hesitating as to whether I should go 
back by the way I had come or make a circular tour of it, 
my ear caught a sound of axes, telling that woodmen were 
at hand, and I bent my steps in the direction of the sound. 
Presently it was located as coming from a huge growth of 
hawthorn trees which had taken possession of a space of 
land sloping to the south. Towards it I made my way. 

It was easy to guess that the settlers were extending 
their bounds. Up to a point there was a comparatively 
hard path, but it stopped abruptly as it would have done 
at the barrier and its continuation was a rough track made 
by recent traffic. The stubs of undergrowth were still 
white where it had been cut to widen the passage. The track 
began at one of the highest points and descended gradually 
to a beautiful piece of woodland sloping to the south. 

From it came a sound of hacking and hewing, of chopping 
and felling, and presently there came into view a gang of 
workers the most industrious and I must add the dourest 
it has ever been my lot to see. They were not felling forest 
trees but hawthorns, thousands of which seemed to have 
taken possession of what might once have been a forty-acre 
field. It was bordered on its four sides with ash, beech 
and oak trees, such as might once have been found in the 
hedgerows. These were of all sizes, the smaller were 


74 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

irregularly distributed seedlings, but a few towered high 
above the thorns and showed the line of the hedge. 

At the moment, it was the thorn which was being system¬ 
atically attacked. First men with great axes smote them 
close to the root; youths followed with choppers to cut 
off the branches, the trunks lying rough and bare till men 
with axes hewed them into logs. Boys then came along 
driving farm-carts into which they tossed the logs as the 
farm-labourer tosses the nutritious swede. Finally came 
a band of children who gathered the sizeable boughs and 
laid them aside, heaping the twigs together and lighting 
innumerable fires that suggested the camp-fires of an army 
before modern weapons were invented. Old and young 
toiled with extraordinary energy and used few words that 
did not relate to their work. 

There was nothing of the “ ca’ canny ” here ; none of 
the fiddling about and time-wasting that characterised 
English labour after the war. Yet I could take no pleasure 
in the sight. It was more like grim fighting than work, 
a dull and desperate chapter in the fight against famine. 
A political economist would have regarded it with admir¬ 
ation, and so would an ambitious autocrat with a lively 
sense of his need for cannon fodder. With me it went 
against a belief formed under very different conditions 
that he only is to be envied who does with all his might 
the work he likes to do. 

From an idle-looking fellow, with whom I got into 
conversation, came a not very welcome endorsement of 
this view. He sat at the door of a little shed smoking 
tobacco. He told me that they had allotted him the job 
of looking after the tools and other belongings of the work¬ 
men. The surrounding forest was infested with thieves 
who went about like wild beasts seeking what they could 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 75 

steal or devour. Nothing was to be seen of them just then. 
They kept out of the way except at dinner-time and night. 
Their chance came when the workers had gone home. It 
was then that they needed watching. They crawled about 
under cover, and if anything caught their eye, it didn’t 
matter much whether it was an axe or a loaf of bread, one 
would spring out and be off with it. 

In answer to my question he said that he liked a job 
of this kind. He was a hunter by trade, a man of guns 
and snares and traps who would have been a poacher in 
a country with game laws. When acting as night-watchman 
he often got a chance of hares, rabbits and sometimes a 
little deer, by which he meant a roe-deer. These were 
easily disposed of. At one time he chopped or bartered 
his game for things he needed, but it was common now to 
sell them for money. For that too he claimed credit. 
While mouching around the stones and ruins he often 
found the place where money had been hidden and others 
had been keen to follow his example, so that they had 
plenty to buy and sell with now. 

Before we had gone farther than this I began to know 
that I had fallen in with a character whose point of view 
would be worth recording. He was shrewd in his way 
though he admitted—nay rejoiced—that he could neither 
read nor write. “ When a man is always book booking, 
it’s a sure sign that there’s something wanting in him,” 
was his explanation. 

He lacked nothing in hospitality, however, and when I 
hinted at being tired, “ Come into the shack and rest you,” 
he said at once. “ You are more than worth it to the like 
of me. It’s not once in six weeks that I meet a soul worth 
talking to. Most are like them,” pointing backward and 
making a gesture with his thumb that looked a very suitable 


76 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

mode of banning the devil, “ hard at it day and night, always 
fearing a famine’s coming the week after the next. What 
I say is: Let them perish of hunger that cannot fend for 
themselves. As long as there’s fish in the water and food 
in the air and beasties in the wood, I’d not starve anyway.” 

“ Yet surely you would like to see old England restored ? ” 
I remarked to draw him out. 

“ Old England ! ” he exclaimed laughing. “ When you 
hear what some of the very old men say, you begin to think 
it a God-knows-what kind of a place where the people 
your grandmother told you about lived, Bluebeard, Old 
Mother Hubbard, and all that lot. Once I heard a man 
give a lecture about the great days of old, and when done 
he offered to answer questions, so I ups and says: 4 You 
tell us that men in it could travel for days under the sea, 
let me see you half-an-hour under the Thames and I’ll 
believe you. As to flying thousands of feet up in the air, 
could you fly over a five-barred gate ? Then what babbles 
and nonsense you talk about lightning—do you think you 
are yarning to kids ? ’ Such a ruffing there was, he could 
not reply, but pretending to laugh he took his hat and left.” 

He paused, looked grave, and then added that it was not 
fair to make fun of men like that either. This was a fearful 
country for the number of men and women who go more 
or less out of their mind. If a man who is mad or very 
old is extravagant in talk it’s best to take no notice. Life 
was given us only once and it was a fool’s trick not to take 
what pleasure we could as long as we had the chance. 

On leaving the watcher’s shelter, I, following his direction, 
found a little street where the village artizans lived and 
worked. Incidentally it disclosed the state to which 
building had advanced. Most of the dwellings still remained 
primitive, but yet there were convincing proofs of progress 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


77 

having been made. I was told that just before my arrival 
three new houses, two of stone and one of brick, had been 
finished. The material had been found in ruined churches 
and manor houses, so that they did not look so very strange 
to my eye. From the general conversation, I gathered 
that it had taken years to cart the stones and bricks, re¬ 
discover the means and method for making mortar and 
lay hands on the tools essential to the masons. 

Numerous examples of the earliest type of dwelling 
remained standing and a few were inhabited, though the 
majority had been turned into outhouses. It was disputed 
which had the priority in age, wood or straw huts. Many 
thought the latter, and I was assured that one pointed 
out was the earliest. The shape of this cottage was rect¬ 
angular. It was wholly, even to the walls, made of thatch. 
Stout young tree stems had been driven in to form pillars; 
these pillars were united by wattles on to which the thatch 
was fastened. Evidently its disadvantages and dangers 
as a place for cooking in had been experienced, as a fire of 
logs was burning outside in the centre of a place sheltered 
from wind, partly by the living forest trees and partly by 
stacks of firewood composed of the large stumps, branches 
and loppings. The old man and his wife who occupied 
it declared that heart could not desire anything more 
comfortable. They had recently celebrated their golden 
wedding, and they came to it when they were married. 
When they spoke of convenience, you might have thought 
from their tone that they were describing the most up-to- 
date labour-saving cottages. They practised the wholesome 
and health-giving habit of eating outside, and it saved all the 
bother of cleaning. Openings were large and many, but they 
showed bolsters of thatch and wattle made to fit the holes. 

No specimen was left of the other oldest-of-all cottage. 


78 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

It seems to have been shaped and formed by binding together 
the tops of two rows of trees standing eight to ten feet 
apart. The rows of trees could easily be obtained by 
cutting away all that were not needed in a self-sown grove 
of young beeches or any other suitable tree. It was perhaps 
too obvious to need pointing out that the adjective “ old 55 
could only be applied to the site and form of any of the 
dwellings. Thatch is a frail roofing material that needs 
continual mending and renewal, and wood, even when 
utilised as a living tree, will not last as long as the Pyramids. 
According to tradition, the first rude shelters were formed 
of bracken and the branches of trees. 

Of exceeding interest were the shops—as indicating 
what callings were deemed essential by a people civilised 
but suddenly deprived of that mechanical transport system 
by which they were enabled to enjoy the fruits of the earth, 
even those produced thousands of miles away without 
handling the most insignificant of the many tools by which 
they were produced. Never did I realise the mightiness 
of the change so vividly as when standing in front of those 
simplicities which might have been with Man at the begin¬ 
ning of his days. War had only given a hint of the truth 
that life and comfort are dependent on work done on the soil. 

People whose food and clothing flowed into England from 
all the points of the compass and from every conceivable 
distance were suddenly planked down without any of the 
machinery by which their food and clothing had been 
produced. Those who had either read to some purpose 
or used their brain to realise how they stood, saw very 
well that the race would end if they did not dig and plant. 
Never out of their minds was the terrible legend that 
before the British Empire met its downfall food in many 
great spaces of the earth had been so ill to get that thousands 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 79 

died of starvation, and most of those who survived had 
done so by eating human flesh. 

Nothing in my strange experience was more impressive 
than the attitude of these people to work. Many hated 
it and few could have derived pleasure from toiling in the 
fields from dawn to dusk, but they could not escape. With 
them the doom of Adam could not be evaded, “ By the 
sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread.” Theoretically I 
suppose it is the same with all people who on earth do 
dwell, but in practice it is otherwise. His thousands 
of years of experience has taught civilised man that there 
are ways of dodging the ancient curse. Some of these 
dodges are nearly as old as the race. It would be printing 
a musty sermon to go into the matter fully, especially as 
books like Debrett and Burke contain the names of whole 
families who claim to be exempt from a curse which ap¬ 
parently is not enforced on those who inherit wealth. 
A more characteristic feature of the age in which we live 
is the art, which has many able exponents, of annexing a 
fraction or the whole of the bread for which another brow 
has sweated. 

There did not exist a single loophole in this remnant of a 
people suddenly thrown back to primitive conditions. 
Nature was Queen, and Work the precept in the heart if 
not in the tablets of the law. Famine, Pestilence, and 
things more horrible than either, were the persuaders she 
employed. Every citizen had to work and work at things 
useful and necessary. Otherwise no escape from Nature’s 
punishment. The fate may seem a hard one, but it was 
accepted in humility and gratitude by those who had a 
legendary belief that they lived in sufferance, the Earth 
having become weary of Man and gladdening at his disaster. 

With a thought like this taking forcible possession of 


8o THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


my mind, you will not wonder that I peered at the men and 
women and asked questions that were inspired by something 
more than a feeling of curiosity. In their wretched and 
poverty-stricken position the number of occupations had 
touched the minimum. 

There were no fine ladies, no fine gentlemen, if you 
accept the rough description of them as a servant-keeping 
class. No statement seemed to them so impossible of 
belief as that I had known a married couple without children 
who paid forty people to do such housework as cooking, serv¬ 
ing and cleaning, and as many more to work in the garden. 

Many other classes were unrepresented It was a land 
without king or crown, without bishop, priest or deacon, 
without ministers of religion, without church or tabernacle. 
There was neither army nor navy, nor any civil army of 
distributors or middlemen. 

What there was I learned from an old woman of whom 
I inquired who inhabited the various houses. There was 
George the Tanner, who made boots for men and harness 
for horses, in addition to turning skins into leather; John 
the Smith, and Ned the Joiner, Harry the Publican and 
Brewer, and Willie a one-legged Schoolmaster. At first 
they were paid in kind, but the tendency was now to pay 
money, the convenience of which had been re-discovered. 

The old lady gave her information very freely, but 
I noticed that she fidgeted like one who answers questions 
but is at the same time eager to supply more than is asked, 
such as entering fully into the importance of wattle-making, 
and the expertness at it of a certain nephew of hers. I 
asked if it had come down in the family as seemed to be the 
case with all other occupations. 

“ No,” she replied, “ I am an Ogilvy—it was a forebear 
of mine who started all the building. It is all written in a 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 81 


paper that you can read if you like, though I could not let 
you take it away.” 

Joyfully the offer was accepted. I read it there and then, 
but am sorry to have to depend on my memory for the 
following summary of what was written at considerable 
length on paper so old it could scarcely be kept together. 
It began with a description of the despair of the first arrivals 
at the Settlement. They had lived in pits and caves for 
the war years and had no idea of building even a temporary 
shelter. 

At last, an impatient young man had burst out with the 
remark that he, at any rate, had tools, and it would be 
strange if he could not find material. “ Here are my two 
foremen and their ten servants,” he had said, holding 
up his hands and twiddling his fingers. 

By the promptitude of his action he showed that while 
the others had been talking and talking, his mind had been 
at work. 

“ Dash it,” he said, as the men pressed round him eager 
to assist in the job. “ Have you never made a hiding 
place for shooting wood-pigeons ? No ? Well, divide 
yourselves into parties that can work together and sleep 
together. Then we’ll be all lodged before nightfall. Too 
many cooks spoil the broth. I could not get on with more 
helpers than I needed.” 

Recognising the sense of it and feeling that the occasion 
had discovered a born organiser, they did as they were bid. 

“ Look at the gorse,” he said, “ see how thick it grows, 
with little islands in the sea of bushes. I got my eye on 
one before I spoke. Then consider the beech forest; 
how it has • cleared the ground with the thickness of its 
summer leaves. They are withered now and the wind has 
gathered them into hollow places ready for use. You 


82 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


have only to collect wood from the fallen trees, and as 
many as you like of these red leaves. Bring them along.” 

Their glance followed his and took in the bewildering 
array of clean stems, the red leaves huddled in the depres¬ 
sions, the accumulation of fallen limbs and branches, the 
ruined trees lightning-struck or wind-thrown that there 
had been no forester to remove. The forest glade and its 
gorse and bracken completed a picture which said much to 
at least one man. 

In a very short time they had separated into groups 
each of which followed his example and began to collect 
fallen wood, dead leaves and bracken, carefully imitating 
his methods as he rapidly built out of the material; each 
group put up a shelter whose roof would stop any ordinary 
rain or wind. His last touch was to cover the floor with a 
thick coating of beech leaves. 

“ Easy work,” he said at last very contentedly, “ when 
you have no need to make the place shell-proof.” 

This was the first practical demonstration that a housing 
scheme could be carried out without bricks and mortar. 
In the morning they said to one another that they had not 
had such a comfortable sleep for years, but the new leader 
would not permit them to take their ease. 

“ You could not let these shanties on a three months’ 
agreement, let alone a lease,” he reminded them. 

A great argument began as to the suitability of the place 
for a permanent settlement, but the young man took no 
part in it. He started by himself to look for a better. He 
had quickness of apprehension as well as energy, and before 
they began talking he had decided that there must be a 
site more suitable. He climbed first one tall tree then 
another, till his eye was arrested by a heap of stones in an 
open space. Hastening to it he was at first horrified then 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 83 

almost pleased to find it a charnel house. The walls had 
been destroyed by an explosion. Fragments of masonry 
lay far from the place where a country house once had 
stood. Human bones and skulls told but too plainly that 
there had been a massacre of the inhabitants, after which 
the buildings had been blown to pieces. Already familiar¬ 
ised with every kind of horror, his eye scanned the ground 
for something else and lightened with interest when he 
caught sight of a good spade. He gave a wild hurrah 
which was repeated when he discovered what had evidently 
been a tool house, as it contained a collection of ordinary 
but useful farm and garden implements tossed from their 
places by the concussion, but under cover and not corroded. 

It had taken much longer to make the discovery than 
might appear from this brief account, so he hastened back 
to tell his companions, the dullest of whom had begun to 
realise how very difficult it would be to grow food without 
implements. 

His name was John Ogilvy, and the favourable start 
made by the Settlement was largely due to his courage and 
perseverance. The legend about him is that when far 
advanced in years he for long defied the ravages of time, 
going about his work with the activity and determination 
of a much younger man. Yet time conquered in the end, 
but I was touched in a way not difficult to explain when 
the old lady showed a huge stone on which was roughly 
chiselled a very few names. They were of those who had 
worked exceptionally hard for the commonwealth. 

Each man had an epitaph, and his read : 

“ With two hands as foremen, and ten fingers as 
servants, John Ogilvy worked fifty-four years at building 
New London.” 


A WATTLE-MAKER TELLS HOW THE SETTLEMENT WAS NEARLY 
DESTROYED BY A FLOOD FOLLOWED BY A FAMINE 

I T may be imagined that the sight of a nation, for it 
indeed was a nation, though only a little remnant of 
an empire, so glued to earth, so bound in the chains of 
labour, caused many reflections. Was this hard cradle the 
right instrument for keeping the fires of civilisation alight 
and spreading its flames ? What could be the effect 
centuries hence ? As the hand of the industrious maketh 
rich, wealth would accumulate, but would it not in the 
end pass as before into the hands of the few and bring 
about a re-birth of greed, unfaith, ostentation and all the 
vicious dishonesties that have led to downfall ? 

Meditating thus, I was slowly walking down the street, 
when I became conscious of being scrutinised by a pair of 
curious eyes. They belonged to an elderly man making 
wattles out of a heap of hazel rods and willow wands. He 
was in a shelter resembling those put up by shepherds to 
protect ewes at lambing time. The place was open to the 
South and West, but wattle and thatch protected him from 
the north wind and the east. Gorse and bracken jammed 
together and kept in position by logs of wood served for 
roof. Although one-legged, he was whistling and singing 
merrily at his craft, but from the look of his eyes I judged 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 85 

that he would not be averse to enter into conversation, so 
I asked him what he was making. 

“ Odd save us!” he replied, “ did ye never keep hens; 
everybody here keeps hens.” 

It was by pure accident that I came to learn from him 
that there had been a flood in the valley. While he was 
showing me among other things a number of bird cages 
that he had made, and all the time whistling or talking to 
the inmates, a sturdy bare-footed, flaxen-haired girl of ten 
or eleven pushed her way into the hut and, not immediately 
seeing him in the dusky bird corner, cried : “ Are you in, 
Noah ? ” Then catching sight of him she held up a basket 
and said : “ Mammy wants this mended.” 

“ Who said Noah ? ” he asked in a tone that told of hurt 
dignity. “ Doesn’t a little brat like you know my right 
name is John Hardy ? Take the basket back to your mother 
and say I’ll do her errants when she gives me my right name.” 

He spoke loudly and in a way that frightened his little 
visitor, who retreated the more hastily because she saw his 
eye dwelling on a supple piece of willow. 

“ It’s one thing,” he said as she went out, “ to take a 
nickname from the old doctor dead this five-and-twenty 
year, and to take a nickname from things hardly done 
sucking. Especially,” he went on, “ when you are getting 
on in years. The day cannot be far off for me to take my 
mittimus, and at the end it would never do to let my right 
name, John Hardy, be mixed up with Noah, which was 
only a joke of the old doctor’s. In the time of the big flood 
he was always near the river measuring the rise or fall of 
the water and helping to save any big stuff that was being 
washed away. I was at the same time cruising about the 
meadows, then under from two to six feet of water, killing 
a rat or two and catching rabbits and hares that got left 


86 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


on bits of rising ground that grew less and less as the water 
rose. I often picked up sheep and goats as welh The old 
Doc would laugh like fun when he saw me, and one day 
especially when I was cruising about with a cargo of dead 
rabbits and hares and lots of living farmyard animals, geese, 
turkeys and several small pigs, he burst out laughing and 
said that I was like Noah. That’s how folk came to call me 
Noah. It began in fun, but it did not stop when I was 
nearly killed through the boat being carried into mid¬ 
stream and a big tree and its branches came smashing along 
and broke my leg. It’s a wonder my life was spared. The 
water had risen a good six inches on that day, and the 
stream in the middle was like a small race whirling animals 
and big forest trees. It was in trying to avoid these trees 
that I injured my leg, so that in the end it had to be cut 
off, and but for Dr. Turnbull I would have been a goner 
for a cert.” 

I imagine that the shock had further damaged a mind 
never quite stable, so it was very difficult to get exact parti¬ 
culars from him. He remembered, and in his own way 
described with vividness the immense number of water 
rats that were drowned out of their holes and forced to take 
to the shore. He also had a vivid memory of a silly old woman 
floating down in a large box in which she used to keep 
her meal, and with a humour that would have been sinister 
in any person of gravity, he laughed at the way in which 
she had bobbed up and down till the very cats that were 
with her sprang wildly out into the stream. 

Of these things he seemed able to talk endlessly, but it 
was very difficult from what he said to form a definite idea 
of this miniature repetition of Noah’s flood. He said that 
he was a boy of about sixteen at the time, and he lived in 
a cottage very little above the river level, so his father and 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 87 

mother were among the first who had to move to higher 
ground. He told again and again about the old boat and 
how he and two companions went out in it every day. He 
told of the many risks they ran because the river ran down 
the middle in a flood that nothing could withstand, and 
they had to confine their boating to the water that had 
overflown the meadows and was, therefore, comparatively 
still and shallow. At first they had been tempted out by 
the little colonies of rabbits and occasional hares that stuck 
fast to any small mound that the water had not reached, but 
as the flood kept increasing, they were obliged in the end to 
take to the water, and very often they preferred to risk 
drowning rather than be killed by the sticks. The boys 
looked upon all this as the greatest sport and fun in the world. 

This was the first stage of the flood, and it did not create 
alarm. Young and old thought that a wonderful supply 
of food had come to them, and it was in circumstances 
that appealed to their hunting instinct. The cruelty did 
not occur to them, because a man had to struggle in those 
times for life and food as desperately as any animal, and the 
kindlier impulses disappeared. Weeks passed before any¬ 
body became seriously alarmed at the floods. They had 
started in October, a month when the rain was expected 
to fall in quantities, and it was tacitly assumed that this 
particular flood would be like many others before it. After 
a month had passed, however, and the rain still persisted to 
such an extent that the waters did not go down, there 
came a feeling of uneasiness. Those who had built their 
houses in the lower and sheltered part of the valley, began 
to shift upwards. The prudent did so in good time, but 
a few families were within an ace of being drowned before 
they decided to beat a retreat. 

My informant had been one of the latter and had a 


88 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


lively remembrance of the discomfort of the new shelter 
which had been hurriedly constructed. Everything was 
dripping wet and it took a long time to make the roof water¬ 
tight, so that the inmates spent their days and nights 
shivering with cold and dampness. Not only so, but a 
certain number attacked with cold and apparently some 
kind of fever died. Still the rain continued to fall. The 
only difference that my informant remembered was that 
during some days it would not come down so heavily as in 
others. Several times they thought that the end of the 
flood was come because the water sank a few inches, but 
this hope was disappointed. Fortunately, the winter was 
not a very hard one or the conditions very soon would have 
become unbearable. The weather was described as soft 
and muggy. For two or three days every week the rain 
would come pouring down. Then it would fall in finer 
showers that seemed almost like mists. At no time did 
the water rise suddenly or come down in a torrential flood ; 
only the river kept rising and rising. First of all the low- 
lying green spaces were turned into lakes; then the water 
advanced on the slightly higher ground which was covered 
with timber, and rose till the trunks of the forest trees were 
to the extent of several feet submerged. 

It is difficult even for one who saw the country in all its 
wildness to draw a picture of the countryside as it must 
have then appeared. The labourer could give very few 
particulars to help one in doing that. His eye had only 
taken in the details as they were brought to his notice by 
personal adventure. For example, a subject from which 
it was very difficult to get him away was that his father’s 
hen-coops had been floated down the river. He would 
repeat in true rustic fashion that they were all secure one 
night just before they had to leave their first dwelling, and 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 89 

that in the morning his mother and sister found that in 
the little garth where they stood nothing was to be seen 
of them, and how eventually someone caught sight of them 
beside the top of a tree which projected out of the water. 
They thought how to save them, but before the plan could 
be put into operation, the water had gradually moved the 
coops from branch to branch till they were free of the tree 
altogether and flowed down mid-stream. He would always 
go back to say that a cockerel in one of the coops would 
every now and then crow vigorously as if he were quite 
happy, and the hens did not show any sign of fear, but they 
were never again heard of. 

That was the sort of incident that my informant would 
describe and re-describe as though it were of the utmost 
importance. It would, of course, have been unreasonable 
to expect that an uneducated boy would have seized the 
outline of the wild desolate scene that now began to be 
spread out. It must have resembled that which met the 
gaze of Noah when his ark floated on the face of waters 
that were submerging the world, first climbing above the 
little downs, then mounting up to the great peaks. Things 
did not go to that extreme in the Thames Valley, but they 
went far enough to fill the mind of the people with terror. 
Human nature under this test developed some of its ugliest 
aspects. 

As hunger began to pass into famine, old superstitions 
that belonged to the twilight of the human race began to 
emerge again. It came to be believed that an old woman 
who lived by herself in a rude shelter made of straw and 
wattle was responsible in some manner for the curse that 
seemed to have fallen on the community. It got spread 
abroad that she was a witch and that the water-spirit would 
not be appeased till she was sacrificed to it. The Dr. 


9 o 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


Turnbull of that time tried in vain to implant more reason¬ 
able ideas in their heads. He told them from his knowledge 
of history of the great deluge that had occurred in the past 
and particularly of a year in the seventeenth century when 
it was believed that the whole of England would be drowned 
in water. He tried to kindle some sort of faith in their 
minds that the evil, like every other evil, would eventually 
pass away, and that the best that they could do was to 
live on the smallest ration that would support life, in order 
that they might not be left altogether without seed, corn 
and stock animals. He found them in a state of mind 
which could not be moved by logic or commonsense. As 
foul weeds take possession of land withdrawn from the 
plough so in the human mind afflicted for generations 
and bereft of its ancient faith and hope, foul and mon¬ 
strous weeds of superstition whose seed had lain dormant 
for centuries, began to reappear. 

The Doctor for the first time in his life found himself 
impotent. If he tried to laugh at the flood as a thing that 
would pass away, nobody paid attention. If he brought 
logic and commonsense to bear, they did not believe him. 
In fact, the majority were becoming desperate and mad. 
In a panic they one night seized a reputed witch and 
carried her to the water side. The Doctor was indignant, 
but powerless. The mob became unruly. The old woman 
was shoved into the water at the end of a rope, and whether 
the mob intended it to be or not made no difference; she 
was drowned. When that dreadful event occurred, the 
Doctor had sense enough to say nothing. What was done 
could not be recalled, and so he turned his attention to 
making what preparation was possible against the years of 
famine that he knew must follow. He collected all the 
seed he could lay hands on and concealed it in high and 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


9i 


dry holes which he plugged up afterwards ; and he also 
turned out pigs, goats and sheep, trusting that their instinct 
would lead to their preservation, and that they would be 
a stock to breed from when the danger had been passed. 

After nearly six months of continuous rain the flood at 
length subsided. Its effects were almost annihilating. It 
was found that the survivors did not amount to fifty per 
cent, of the pre-flood population, the greater part had 
died either from drowning, starvation or disease. The 
loss in wealth was dreadful, because it consisted of the 
necessary adjuncts of life; cottages swept away, live¬ 
stock drowned or lost, much land made untillable for the 
year. None of the help was forthcoming that in other 
circumstances might have come from public funds, private 
subscriptions or foreign sympathy. The community ex¬ 
isted in complete isolation, and for all its members knew 
were the only living representatives of their race. Of the 
survivors not one was in a position to help another. 

A dreary future unlighted by hope spread before them. 
Circumstances like these, however, made even the smallest 
slice of luck inspiriting. Everybody took it for granted 
that the wild people had stolen and killed the domestic 
animals that had been turned out to fend for themselves, 
but as events turned out the savage people had migrated 
from the neighbourhood and probably found their simple 
wants supplied by the water. Most of the animals were 
found on the higher ground and had thriven on the herbage 
due to the prevalence of wet, muggy weather. The care¬ 
fully stored seeds were untouched and ready for sowing. 
Best of all the weather grew fine and myriads of birds 
attracted by the re-appearance of mire and bog, started 
to nest and yield a supply of eggs. Thus a way of recovery 
was opened even out of this desperate situation. 


X 


How Adam Grey unconsciously started a revival or 

THE CHRISTIAN FAITH WHICH HAD BEEN ALMOST DESTROYED 


BY FAMINE AND SUFFERING 



HOSE who survived the Famine and the Flood emerged 


from that peril weak in body and broken in spirit. 
Depression hung over them like a thick fog, and they were 
never heard laughing. A spell lay on them for years. 
He who broke this spell was a young man who during summer¬ 
time lived on the Downs where by arrangement with the 
others, he took charge of the sheep possessed by members 
of the Settlement. The combined flock was not very large 
and would not have involved any vast labour if he had not 
agreed also to milk the ewes and carry the milk down in a 
goat-cart made for the purpose and give it to the owners 
so that they should consume what they needed and convert 
the remainder into cheese. 

(No one could have desired a better authority on 
material things than the basket-maker. He seemed to 
know every horse, cow, goat and sheep in the settlement 
and it scarcely needs saying he was a born gossip who 
had an even more minute knowledge of the human in¬ 
habitants. But all outside this category were to him mere 
“ ongoings.” I had to go to others for the boy’s story.) 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 93 

Early one morning this lad, whose name was Adam Grey, 
was milking in the fold, letting each ewe out to crop the 
fresh green herbage as soon as he had finished with her. 
It was a June morning. Beads of dew glittered on the blades 
of grass as they were caught by the rays of an ascending 
sun. The song of larks fell like water from a fountain, as, 
with quivering note they soared higher and higher. Night¬ 
ingales sang from the edge of a brake where wild roses grew 
in thickets, and lambs raced and played. The young man 
too felt happy and gave voice to his happiness. It was his 
manner of doing so that indirectly started the religious 
movement. This is what happened. During many of 
those hours in which there was little to do he had occupied 
himself with reading in one of a little parcel of printed 
books. It was the Book of Common Prayer, which he read 
over and over again from the first page to the last. Most 
of all did he read certain favourite sentences that he loved 
because nature had endowed him with an instinctive liking 
for the pure rhythmical English. Religion he had not 
thought about, but that conduced still more to the wonder 
when he entered the end of the village walking in front of the 
two goats that drew his milk cart, and reciting with loud, 
uncouth sweetness some of his favourite sentences, such as: 
“ When the wicked man turneth away . . “ I will 

arise, and go to my Father . . “ Let your light so shine 

before men . . .” “ Lay not up for yourselves treasure 

upon the earth.” 

He loved the last of these sentences best of all. He was 
so wrapped up in his attempt to give vocal value to 
certain mysterious suggestions of awe and wonder that 
came to him as he pored over and repeated the printed word 
that he became unconscious of everything except his effort 
to realise the music and meaning of the phrase, and the 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


94 

atmosphere they create of mankind treading the hard and 
difficult way appointed them by the Giver of Life : “ Lay 
up for yourselves treasures in heaven ; where neither rust 
nor moth doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break 
through and steal.” His voice attuned itself naturally to 
the rhythm of the text. 

On this morning of leafy June the melodious recital 
had an effect beyond that of any singing bird, and speedily 
drew listeners from every house. Maidens rising drowsy 
from their beds of chaff and fern peeped through tiny 
windows with looks subdued and attentive. Those elders 
who had risen as usual to work in house or field began to 
peep and listen ; even the youths and young men, heaviest 
of sleepers, rubbed their eyes as the young voice with re¬ 
strained ardour prolonging the syllables dwelt on the 
phrases: “ Where the rust and moth doth corrupt, and 
where thieves break through and steal.” 

Some of the women trembled and wept with the thrill 
of ancient strains and memories. To them the shepherd- 
boy paid no heed. He walked away in front of his goats and 
their cart repeating his favourite passage, as a bird is content 
to repeat its one snatch of song : “ Lay not up for your¬ 
selves treasure upon the earth; where the rust and moth 
doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; 
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven: where 
neither rust nor moth doth corrupt, and where thieves do 
not break through and steal.” It was unthinkable to country 
wit that he should do this, without the slightest religious 
motive or understanding. 

No one could hear him recite it without seeing in imagina¬ 
tion what he saw, the moth or the rust corrupting and the 
thief breaking through to steal. His young sympathetic 
voice had something of that melancholy that is heard in the 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 95 

brook’s song and in the sorry wind, that belongs in fact 
to the very essence of Nature. His voice rose to a majesty 
of comfort and light as he reached the words, “ Crying in 
the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make His 
path straight.” 

When the boy had gone, several of the women as they 
started to prepare breakfast recalled verses from old hymns 
and crooned them as they went about their household 
duties. One voice louder than the rest chanted or sang 
as though it were folk-song : 

On the other side of Jordan, 

In the green fields of Eden, 

Where the Tree of Life is blooming, 

There is rest for the weary, 

There is rest for you. 

It was taken up by the good wife who was arranging break¬ 
fast in the next garden, and tossed like a ball from one 
cottage to another till the whole colony was singing. They 
first looked from doors or windows, and then stepped out 
and sang together as if they had been birds. It caused many 
to think of what they used to hear from the lips of grandfathers 
and grandmothers when a girl’s voice started : 

There is a happy land, 

Far, far away, 

Where saints in glory stand, 

Bright, bright as day. 

O, how they sweetly sing, 

Worthy is our Saviour King, 

Loud let His praises ring, 

Praise, praise for aye. 


9 6 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


Come to this happy land, 

Come, come away. 

Why will ye doubting stand ? 

Why still delay ? 

O, we shall happy be 

When from sin and sorrow free, 

Lord, we shall live with Thee, 

Blest, blest for aye. 

Bright in that happy land 
Beams every eye, 

Kept by a Father’s hand, 

Love cannot die. 

On, then, to glory run, 

Be a crown and kingdom won, 

And bright above the sun 
Reign, reign for aye. 

Thus was resumed the singing of hymns in company. 
It could not be prolonged in the morning because men 
who started at daylight would soon be clamouring for 
breakfast and this was a land of no servants. The women 
broke off in order to light their fires and get the porridge- 
pot on, but each carried to her household duties a little 
glow of pleasure, and as they stirred the bubbling porridge 
half smiled at times and now and then lilted as if it were a 
lullaby : 


Why will ye doubting stand ? 
Why still delay ? 


They could not have been happier had they discovered a 
gold mine, and indeed, to them a new comfort that was 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 97 

also a pleasure was of more value than any gold mine. For 
a long time afterwards the incident provided a topic of 
conversation. The elder women remembered that when 
they were children their mothers would croon such verses 
to their babes, but would cease doing so if their fathers 
entered. Fathers of that period did not like hymns, and sons 
followed their example. In the masculine mind there was 
a strong feeling that God had forsaken them in the day 
of their need and they would not acknowledge Him, but 
the feminine mind is more governed by impulse and emotion 
than by any dispassionate regard for justice. According 
to the immemorial usage of the sex, they adored what they 
were told to hate. Many stories came out to show that 
the women of an elder generation had done forbidden things 
in secret, chanted forbidden songs for example, and even 
addressed prayers to the unknown God. That was in 
the day of a far-back generation. The girls had lost the 
piety of their mothers. The boys never shared it, and the 
girls liked to think the same as the boys. Thus would they 
talk in house and field, wherever two or three were gathered 
together. And because the memory of terrible hardships 
still hung over them they found it easy and comforting 
to believe that when the last great river was passed they 
would reach a country where there was no more hunger, 
no pain, no sorrow. “ One more river to cross,” was 
sung with a rapture never attained even by the Salvation 
Army. 

The wise elders viewed all this at first with tolerance. 
It was a fixed principle with them to encourage any 
movement that diverted thought from dwelling on the 
cruel fate that had dogged this small human family. Yet 
the mass felt the disapproval of the elders. The new con¬ 
verts held their tongues in the presence of those who were 


98 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

deemed wiser, but probably they were not quite uncon¬ 
scious of the stern glance with which they heard or saw 
expression of this new joy. 

Life for the leaders had no other object than that of 
regaining a lost heritage. Dimly but certainly they saw 
stern battling in prospect and above all else it was necessary 
to keep the race and the individual hard and fit in body 
and in spirit. With men so inspired, Christianity was 
bound to clash as soon as it began to affect any considerable 
number of people. They, with all their wisdom, failed to 
divine the rapidity with which the creed was spreading. 
Yet nothing was done in the spirit of secrecy. It was 
only that the worshippers were conscious of cold disapproval 
on the part of those whom they regarded as their superiors 
in wisdom, and were shy of displeasing those who had 
so long been looked up to with veneration. Hence they 
did "not draw attention to their meetings lest they 
should displease those whom they had been taught to 
respect. 

What brought the matter fully to the front was the result 
of an accident. A man in the prime of life met with a 
terrible mishap when working on a haystack. He was at 
the very top rounding it off for thatching when stretching 
too far from the ladder on which he stood, it gave way and 
brought the man to the ground with half a ton of hay 
on top of him. The man was so badly mutilated that little 
hope of life remained. On such an occasion the Doctor 
was comforter as well as physician. It became his duty 
to inform the victim that he had only a short time to live 
and asked if there was anything he would like done, any 
burden from which he wished to be relieved. 

Now the man was suffering from no lack of intelligence, 
his injuries were purely physical. He had never lost 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 99 

consciousness; his wits were all about him, yet what to most 
would have been a sombre message brought to his lips and 
still more to his eyes such a smile of happiness as neither the 
Doctor nor any other had seen him wear before as he 
replied : “ I know that my Redeemer liveth.” 

You probably do not understand the reason of the extra¬ 
ordinary disappointment this caused to his physician and 
adviser. To do so you would need to live a life of devotion 
to one cause, and fear still more and more as the last of 
your days slipped away, that before victory could be achieved, 
you would have returned to the dead mould whence you 
came. That was the sentiment that had to permeate 
every individual in the Settlement if the past were to be 
redeemed. It was difficult for a leader in whose mind a 
high purpose transcended every other consideration to 
retain fully the sense of brotherhood by which he had won 
and retained affection. Had not a great compassion for one 
cut off in his prime welled up and brought to the surface 
the warm kindness of his nature, the Doctor might have 
said something that would have disturbed the spirit about 
to leave its earthly tenement. He controlled himself and : 
“ You have always played a man’s part,” he said in tones 
of manly comfort, “ your name shall not be forgotten. I 
myself will see that it is inscribed in the hall of remembrance 
and it shall be known to those who come first into our 
great new kingdom.” 

The dying man probably did not follow his thought. 
“ Oh, Doctor,” he said. “ Tell them I die in the faith. 
Parting is a sore thing at best, and it’s only religion can make 
it bearable. If you would but accept the truth and teach 
it yourself, man ! Tell them it’s the will of God that I am 
to cross over, but it’s happy to be going. There is no ever¬ 
lasting work in heaven, nor empty bellies, nor shivering 


100 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


cold, and say when they follow, I’ll be waiting.” He 
was stopped by a regurgitation of blood in his throat, 
and after jerking out a repetition of the word “ waiting,” 
he passed into an unconsciousness from which he never 
returned. 


XI 


The old men and Christianity 


A FTER his funeral the old men held a council. It 
** had been made apparent to them that the re¬ 
establishment of the British Empire would indeed become a 
far-off event if Christianity were allowed to make headway. 
They did not waste time in discussing its historic truth, its 
merits or de-merits. They had considered these long, or 
rather, they had adopted the conclusions arrived at before 
their time that Christianity at its best was a religion based on 
love, austerity and self-sacrifice, noble virtues in a state 
content to be poor and unambitious, but opposed to a people 
of Imperial ambition. Few made even an attempt to preach, 
and none to practise its altruistic tenets. What they actually 
realised most was the strength of its melancholy appeal. 
“ Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live 
and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like 
a flower, he fleeth as it were a shadow and never continueth 
in one stay.” True in general, this was particularly true 
of them. Life had been brief and miserable to many. 
They remembered as an eager child pulsating with life the 
man who had just been buried, “ cut down like a flower.” 

Eternal rest appealed to those worn-out with labour as in 
itself Heaven, but if added to this cessation of toil were all the 
joys of Elysium what attraction had further effort for them ? 

H 


IOI 


102 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


No, what the elders needed was a religion centred in race, 
one that would make the individual content to have done 
his little share in a work that would confer happiness on 
generations who would be active long after he had mouldered 
into dust. 

The elders exchanged a few words on topics such as this, 
but very soon they got back to the immediate and practical 
question—how were they going to arrest the spread of 
Christianity in the community. At the start they were 
met by an obstacle difficult just because it was so slight and 
intangible—Adam Grey, the herd lad to whom the beginning 
of the movement was traced. 

Nobody had much to say about Adam, either for or 
against. It was agreed that he had a good way with animals 
and always had them in good fettle. His memory was 
nothing to boast about, as he had been known to take back 
nearly half of his milk having forgotten to whom it should 
have been delivered. He had never been seen at any 
revival or any other religious meeting, and did not seem to 
understand what religion was about. Many thought him 
weak-minded, but found it difficult to say why. It appeared 
strange to them that he cared very little for company. 
He had practically taught himself to read, and was often 
found in a sunny, sheltered corner poring over a book, 
not reading on page after page, but puzzling out a few 
lines which he would read over and over to himself and 
then repeat aloud. When he did that, every passer-by 
stopped to listen, for he brought such beautiful meanings 
out of the words, and he had a voice like a musical instrument 
that could turn your mind in any direction he wanted. 

It was resolved that the elders should visit him. The 
old men were very wise and steeped in an experience from 
which they extracted every ounce of profit, but they con- 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 103 

fessed to one another as their ponies climbed upward by 
the track that they could make nothing of the stories they 
heard of Adam Grey. They might be blind themselves, 
but they would not be led by the blind. They would see 
the boy and learn if he had any worth or was a mere imposter. 

Unconscious of having attracted anybody’s attention, 
Adam was occupied in a way very common with him. 
At the shady side of a small spinney he was engaged in 
trying to decipher and understand portions of a book of 
poetic extracts. Instinct told him that he had hit upon 
a nugget of gold, but he mistrusted his own first impressions, 
and was slow to add to his small but growing treasury of 
comfortable words. The prize he had stumbled on was 
“ Kubla Khan.” It was, like all but a few pieces of prose 
and verse, entirely new to him, and being new was difficult. 
Its wizardry laid him under a spell, but the meaning 
baffled him. His attempt to understand it was not 
helped by the attentions of six sturdy lambs that divided 
their time between racing along the hill-top and butting 
at their young keeper. Though he met their onset with a 
punch from his hand or foot, whichever came in the handier, 
the animals were not dismayed. 

“ If it were me or you,” said one old man to another, 
“ the lambs would be off fast enough, but they take a whack 
from the lad as if they liked him the better for it.” 

They had come near as he spoke. “ Improving the mind 
as well as resting the body ? ” he said to Adam. “ It 
is a thing I always like to see in young men. Lay in a 
store of information just now and soon or late it will come 
in useful. You may take my word for it.” 

The lad answered with a smile that might have come from 
a baby. “ I doubt I am no hand at gathering useful infor¬ 
mation. It’s only that I pass the time puzzling out a piece 


io 4 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

of English poetry to see if the meaning is as good as the 
sound, and to-day I have come upon a hard one. Maybe 
you can tell me what it means.” 

“ No,” replied the old man, with a smile as engaging 
as that of his hearer, “ my education has been neglected 
on that side, and what we have come to talk to you about 
is the Christian religion. You have set the young men 
and women singing hymns and preaching and praying. 
As this religious revival started with you, we wish you to 
be very frank and tell us what has gone on at the meetings 
of which we understand a large number has been held.” 

“ I never was at a meeting and I do not know what the 
the word ‘ religion ’ means,” he replied in a tone that left 
no doubt of his sincerity. 

“ Can you say that with a Prayer Book beside you ? ” 
he was asked. 

“ The book was given to me by Nichol when his son 
died, him that played the fiddle. I learned to read on it 
when his son was fiddling, and when he died Nichol was 
always wanting me to say it to him. He said that was 
as good as hearing the fiddle. ‘ Lay not up for yourselves 
treasure upon the earth, where the rust and moth doth 
corrupt and where thieves break through and steal, but lay 
up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth 
nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break 
through and steal.* I like saying it to myself just as I like : 

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, 

Nor the furious winter’s rages; 

Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: 

Golden lads and girls all must, 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 105 

I often say things like that over to myself loud because it 
takes away the lonesomeness. Nobody used to heed it, 
and I can never get the meaning of such things till I hear 
them.” 

Somehow the elders were not getting on as well as they 
expected with Adam Grey. The young herd lad by his 
innocent and child-like frankness was beginning to make 
them look ridiculous, but it was left to a very different 
person to complete their overthrow. Nichol Tod had always 
been regarded by the intelligent as an oddity, but by those 
who did not lay claim to stand on the same level, he was 
looked up to as an oracle. At that time he had reached an 
age at which the majority are past work, but he kept on 
and every morning could be seen wheeling his barrow out 
to his bit of land. In addition to his tools, a spade, a 
shovel, a cutting axe and a pickaxe, the load included his 
victuals for the day and his tinder-box for making a fire 
within his little wooden shed. 

“ In these days I travel no more than I can help,” he 
would explain, and there were many who knew that he 
no longer had living kith or kin, nobody but Adam Grey, 
with whom he shared his cottage and who also remained all 
day in the fields. Nichol’s figure was bent with years, 
and his hair was thin and grey, but his blue eyes were as 
shrewd and blithe as ever. 

His voice interrupted the colloquy. “ Hi, Adam,” he 
shouted from half a field’s distance, “ half a dozen yows 
have broken fence and got out on the North Waste. Haste 
lad and shoo them back before the she-wolf gets at them.” 

Adam was off before the words were finished, and the 
veteran advanced to the elders. 

“ The old she wolf’s going to litter in the old den,” he 
said to them. “ If you don’t get up a hunt and kill or 


106 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


frighten her away she’ll play havoc with cows and sheep 
when the cubs come, but maybe that’s what brought you 
up the hill ? You might want us to stop her in so the dogs 
can get a worry.” 

The first elder, a shrewd, peaceable man who prided 
himself on getting things through by tact and sagacity 
deemed this a fine opportunity to exert his skill at manage¬ 
ment. 

“ What you say is very right, Nichol, and shall be attended 
to at once. Our young men must take that work in hand 
and not be content till the North Waste is cleared of every 
harmful animal. In return, you must give us a help in 
another matter. We came up to talk to Adam Grey who 
is causing trouble in the Settlement. Not that we are 
casting all the blame on him or that we find any ill in him. 
The lad I judge to be without guile. He has taken to 
reading books, and that’s no fault either. Only he goes 
about with his milk all the time repeating passages he has 
got by heart, and there are those who take it up. He is a 
winning lad with a voice that carries folk away. When he 
repeats the bit: ‘ Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven ; 
where neither rust nor moth doth corrupt, and where 
thieves do not break through and steal,’ they listen as 
though he were a preacher and become what used to be 
called ‘ converted.’ They hold meetings and pray and 
preach and cry as though they were demented. We are 
afraid that it will end in a revival of the Christian religion. 
Now that’s a very soft religion, Nichol. We do not think 
that it is good for our community, and I would like to have 
your own commonsense opinion about it. Just look at the 
thing in the light of your own experience. What are our 
treasures on the earth ? Bring it down to hard facts and 
the answer is, corn and potatoes. Suppose you do not 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 107 

have any potatoes in the pit or corn in the barn, what 
happens when a hard winter comes ? Starvation ! If you 
have had a good store there will be some left even if the 
rats and mice and disease have taken their share. Now what 
do you think, Nichol ? ” 

The old man had a puzzled look on his face. “ What 
you say sounds commonsense, ,, he replied. “ I never looked 
at it that way before, and I often repeat the words myself. 
My son when he was on his deathbed gave Adam the three 
books he has. One was a dictionary and one was a book 
of songs and rhymes, and the third was a Prayer Book. My 
son had no religion that I know of, although this is not the 
first revival we’ve had by long chalks. He liked many of 
the same bits that Adam likes, and he could say them by 
heart. Before Adam could read I’ve watched him listening 
to my son. It helped to pass many a winter night when 
one could do nothing, seeing that there was no light but 
what came from the fire. Other whiles he played the 
fiddle and there are times now when I am listening to 
Adam repeating verses like : ‘ Lay not up for yourselves 
treasure upon the earth,” which set me dreaming that 
my lad is back again and playing the fiddle just as he used 
to, first the fiddle and then the favourite verses from the 
Prayer Book. When he came to 1 Lay up for yourselves 
treasures in heaven; where neither rust nor moth doth 
corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal,’ 
sorrow did not pass away, but it sank as a flame sinks into 
a glow, and in a year or two it came to me that the treasure in 
heaven was a quiet mind, which, if you get right lets you 
live without grieving. It’s like a little room into which 
you can run when storms come. The rain falls, the 
wind blows, lightnings flash, but they are all outside. It is 
only the inside that matters. You feel that even were the 


io8 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


lightning to strike it would not greatly matter. The quiet 
mind has come to know that to be stilled for ever is no 
bad ending.” 

The three elders did not fully understand. The old 
rustic did not do so fully himself. He could not analyse ; 
he had no great gift of expression, only felt that he had 
obtained some inward light that as long as he could keep 
it shining would enable him to see clearly and in true pro¬ 
portion whatever might befall. So after talking to him 
very sympathetically they went their way. 

Later, when a council was held on the subject of 
Christianity, it was found that the elders had changed 
their point of view. 

At meetings of that kind it was strictly ordained that 
appeals to passion or prejudice should disqualify the speaker 
from being further heard, suspicion of oratory having 
been handed down from the later Georgian age when it was 
an irresistible temptation for professional lawyers to prefer 
the telling to the truthful argument. I only mention the 
circumstance ; it would take a long time and much patience 
to examine the possibility of producing truth and candour 
by Act of Parliament. One can easily imagine that a 
Mark Antony compelled to argue under such rules could use 
the style of an honest, blunt man “ who is no orator as 
Brutus is ” to conceal a subtler advocacy and a more im¬ 
passioned argument. 

The harsh, narrow-minded martialist who brought 
forward a plan for dealing humanely with Christian zealots 
was not a Mark Antony, but he could adopt the language 
of reason and commonsense. He studiously avoided the 
inflammatory and vindictive, and almost succeeded in 
spreading a garment of benignity over his proposal. He 
began by pointing out that the founders of the state had 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 109 

asserted as a principle that there should be no interference 
with the freedom of the individual to think and advocate 
what he pleased. With this sentiment the speaker expressed 
a full agreement. 

“ I pass no judgment, : ” he said, “ on those persons who 
believe that death is a passing into a heaven and changing 
an existence full of pain and trouble for one of everlasting 
joy. Early Christians suffered martyrdom rather than 
disclaim such a belief and Mahommedans have faced death 
in thousands because they believed in a different paradise. 
It is useless to argue about a belief of that sort. All I 
say is that no traveller has returned to tell about it. Others 
say that death is the end—a man falls as a tree falls and his 
body rots back into the clay. These outward and visible 
changes may be symbols of changes invisible. I know of 
no evidence either in proof or disproof. These very 
opposite views and all the other views lying between them 
offer a considerable choice to anyone who needs a creed. 
My own mind does not travel so far. The only credo I 
profess is that it is up to us to do our best to get the old 
Empire on its legs again. If we manage to get that done, 
the rest will come of itself. We hold together on the 
common desire to revive old England; those who are not 
with us are against us. Let them go forth and form a 
community of their own far away from this one, so that 
there may be no interchange of thought or opinion. This 
is not punishment, only separation, and I think that the 
Christians will see that it is better for them as well as for us. 
If you mix fire and water, one will go out and the other 
pass away as steam. We are the fire and our business and 
what we want is not water but fuel. 

“ To talk plainly and not in images, there lies before 
us and those who follow us a work that will need hard, 


Iio THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


strong men to carry it through. Christians among us 
would make for weakness, not for strength. What do we 
want with the doctrines of love, pity, humility, prayer, 
fasting, turning the other cheek to the smiter, forgiveness 
and enduring the ills of this world for the sake of a kingdom 
not made with hands ? Our choice lies between separation 
or eternal opposition. Which do you prefer ? ” 

It was a cunning speech and it created the impression 
of being unanswerable. Several other speakers enlarged 
on the topic to the same purport before the answer of the 
elders was delivered. None of them got up, but they 
followed the custom of selecting a spokesman to explain a 
change of attitude that had taken place. They had no 
written law and tradition had handed down a dislike of 
lawyers, but a vigilant look-out was kept for those who had 
aptitude for stating a case. In this instance, a good choice 
had been made. The man who got up to reply differed 
from the opener of the debate inasmuch as he was young, 
pleasant, homely and humorous. 

He said : “I am no great hand at argument, but while 
the talking was going on I was just thinking who they are 
that it is proposed should be sent wandering to the west. 
It wasn’t easy to mind their last names. They are known 
to everybody by their common names—Ted, Jock, Bill, Dan, 
Hobby and Josh. Nobody ever says Edward Richardson 
or John Bryson. The same with their wives—Meg and 
Peg, Sis and Nell. Why is this ? You all know and respect 
Ambrose Pilkington, who made such a clever but cruel 
opening. Everybody respects him. If we followed the 
old custom, he would never be mentioned except as Mr. 
Ambrose Pilkington or Ambrose Pilkington, Esq. He 
might even have had a title such as Baron Pilkington of 
Knaresborough; that is where his family came from. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS m 


Those who take an interest in these things tell me that 
Hobby and Jock have as good an origin. Why is it that 
you address them with a sort of kindly familiarity ? I think 
I can tell you. It is because each of them is a bit silly, just 
the sort to be carried away by any passing crank of the day. 
They are not very useful members of the community. I 
like them and you like them, so we do not say behind their 
backs anything we could not say in front of them without 
giving offence. What would banishment, for banishment 
it is, do for them ? You know the answer better than I do. 
They could not shift for themselves in a new country that 
is not yet broken up. They have never learned themselves 
to work seriously. Which of them would you find joining 
a company to take in new land where the work is very hard 
and the reward has to be waited for ? Yet we like to have 
them among us. They are cheery, hand-to-mouth char¬ 
acters, and we cherish them. And what about their so- 
called conversion ? I will tell you how it happened, but 
I would defy any human being to make them understand 
the story any more than you can make a puppy or a kitten 
understand. The boy, Adam Grey, who set it all going, 
never went to any of their meetings, never knew he had been 
taken up in that sense at all. It appears that after getting 
somebody to learn him his A.B.C., he taught himself to 
read out of an old Prayer Book a verse at a time. He lives 
a very quiet life with his sheep and diverts himself first by 
puzzling out the meaning of the words by using his dictionary 
and pestering people with questions. At last, when it’s all 
off by heart he begins repeating it in the open air, some¬ 
times whispering, sometimes shouting like a maniac. But 
he’s a fine lad. Once when Dr. Turnbull was over here, 
he happened to see and hear him. < Caedman redevivus,’ 
he said with a pleased laugh, ‘ a sight like that is good for 


112 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


sair e’en.’ And when I asked who Caedman was, I wrote 
down his reply on a piece of paper to make no mistake. ‘ Oh, 
Caedman was a herd laddie who rehearsed hymns in a shippon 
two thousand years ago, and why should we not have a 
Caedman ? ’ ” 

It was clever of the advocate to bring in the name of the 
Doctor Turnbull of that day. Probably nobody but he 
knew who Caedman was, but they took it that he must have 
been a good man. At any rate interference with private 
thought and belief was against their principles. Perhaps 
it is enough to know the result. At any rate I had to hasten 
away. Hart’s daughter had returned with an invitation 
to meet Dr. Turnbull. 


XII 


The visitor rides with the captain’s daughter to 
Dr. Turnbull’s house in a distant part of the Settle¬ 
ment. They cross the barrier to visit a cave-woman. 
Her story 


f I ''HE morning of the day on which, under Bessie’s 
guidance, I made the journey to Dr. Turnbull’s 
house, left a very pleasant memory behind. It was typical 
of a frosty Yuletide. The sun came up shining red through 
the haze; red too were beech leaves lying under bare 
trees, like a wedding carpet in a church aisle. The last 
cottage we passed stood with its back to the beeches that 
spread their large twiggy branches over its thatch. The 
front was set with bushes of holly and laurel, red berries, 
green leaves and tawny thatch melting into a harmony of 
colour. Bessie, with her ringing laugh and her dog-like 
brown eyes under eyelashes black as soot laughed like a 
woodland elf as we trotted along. 

She had brought two of the ponies of the country, and 
her merriment began when she saw me eyeing with a 
rueful suspicion the unclipped animal which, apparently, 
I was expected to ride bare-backed with a farm-rope for 
bridle. 

“ Dear Visitor,” she said, in answer to what she thought 
my unspoken complaint, “ we have but one leather saddle 
113 



114 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

and must reserve it for high occasions. Let me show you 
the way.” 

While speaking she had adjusted a wickerwork pannier 
laden with provisions on the shoulders of her mount, and 
with a spring she was astride on its back. Her little steed 
made a caracole, and then persuaded by a skilful application 
of her riding switch flew off at a gallop which she speedily 
reduced to a sober trot. 

I never have been much of a horseman, but having been 
brought up where horses were an institution, I, in following 
her example as far as mounting was concerned, had no diffi¬ 
culty. My occupation of the seat was brief. In a moment, 
the pony had risen on its hind legs and standing erect 
seemed trying to thrust its head among the stars. Luckily, 
it did not topple over backwards; only it had no sooner 
resumed its quadrupedal attitude than up went its hind 
legs and I slid ingloriously over its head to the ground. I 
managed to hold on to the rope and after pulling me a few 
yards it stood still and positively leered at me out of the 
white of its eyes. My feelings were not smoothed by the 
unquenchable laughter of Bessie, who had for all I knew 
seen what happened through the back of her head, and had 
returned to survey the effect of the catastrophe, which she 
evidently regarded as an excellent joke. 

In humiliation and rage I jumped to my feet and regained 
my place on the pony’s back. He would have repeated the 
performance, but anger and vexation had dissipated the 
first hesitation. With knees stuck to his ribs and a use of 
the switch that was far from being playful, I managed to 
reduce him to seriousness and made little attempt to check 
his speed when, with nose almost on the ground, he started 
like a hare to race over the clean sward on which ran a track 
up hill. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 115 

By the time the last cottage was reached the two quad¬ 
rupeds were trotting along together like old stagers. It was 
good firm going on the downland track, and very soon I had 
joined Bessie in laughing at the incident. She soon grew 
more serious, and at the foot of the next rise jumped off 
inviting me to follow her example. 

The ponies were steaming and blowing clouds of vapour 
from their nostrils. “ You were always gamesome, Paddy, 
and so ready to show it,” she said to my mount. “ With 
your head hanging down you look so sad a stranger couldn’t 
imagine your tossing a man on the ground as if he were a 
baby.” 

To me she said : “ Let us walk; you prefer it to riding 
Pm sure, and besides, I am dying for a little rational con¬ 
versation. There are few who have the gift of it here.” 
She paused and then went on in a quizzical kind of way 
between jest and earnest. “ Being in charge of you for 
the time being places me in a difficulty and it is equally 
embarrassing that though madly in love with my father, 
my Uncle Cecil and Dr. Turnbull, I am going to act against 
their wishes, and what is more, feel tempted to lead you 
astray also.” 

“ Ha, temptress! into what rash adventure would you 
wile your swain ? ” I asked in mock heroics. 

“ Didn’t you think the ancient armour symbolic ? ” she 
asked, and I had to grope for her meaning till she became 
impatient. 

“ Children, mere children ! ” she exclaimed. “ Don’t 
you follow ? These people of the mud-flats and woods have 
reverted to childhood for a moment of time. Like children 
they are happy and cruel, cunning, unthinking.” She 
stopped suddenly and then resumed in a different tone : 
“ This is neither the time nor the place, and I am mad to 


ii 6 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


let thought and tongue wander from the immediate purpose. 
It may have been wrong to let you come,” she added and 
paused. 

Curious as I was in regard to her reserve and hesitation, 
it seemed to me the only hopeful method to let her take her 
own way. After a while she asked if I could make out 
in the distance what looked like a mound and a row of 
palisades. 

When I had done so—“ That is our Land’s End,” she 
said, “ and beyond it the land is wilderness and inhabited 
by savages. Will you stop here till I go and return ? ” 

“ No, I will not,” was the prompt reply. “ Where you 
go I also am going.” 

She did not seem displeased at the decision with which 
this was said. 

“ You cannot go without knowing what my errand is,” 
she said, and added : “ If you were told you might not be 
sympathetic.” 

“ Why not tell me and find out ? ” I asked, “ unless 
you have discovered some reason for distrust.” 

“ No, no,” she replied impatiently, “ I trusted you at 
sight, but my way leads through briers and thorns. It 
was a mad impulse; most unfair to bring you. Let me 
go and trust me when I say it is innocent and merciful. 
You must be in no way responsible.” 

“ That’s neither here nor there, Bessie,” I said, “ to go 
beyond the boundary is dangerous, and you should not 
go alone.” 

“ I’ve done so many a time before,” she rejoined, and 
once more became quiet as if immersed in thought, while 
I waited patiently. At last she broke the silence. 

“ I have always acted on the principle ‘ Trust not at all or 
all in all,’ and I trust you though our acquaintance has 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 117 

been short.” She spoke without a suspicion of impulse, 
but deliberately and coldly as if formulating a decision at 
which she had slowly arrived. 

“ What I am going to say,” she resumed, “ you will 
very likely put down to the arrogance of youth and inex¬ 
perience. It is very easy for the young to believe they can 
set the world right on a great matter till they have failed 
in many a small one. Also, it is to me hateful that I should 
oppose the kith and kin from whom I have had nothing 
but love, yet faithfulness to myself cannot really be unfaith¬ 
fulness to them. I am a heretic to the creed of the Settle¬ 
ment. My faith in the future has swung round to the 
stunted, half-witted, beast-like savages.” 

“ You astonish me!” I exclaimed, but I did not say 
that the astonishment was magnified by the intense hatred 
she crowded into the last three adjectives. Her tone was 
like the hissing of red-hot iron when thrown into ice. 

“ You mean, I suppose, that after being coddled and 
schoolmastered by generations of the benevolently minded, 
they will grow strong and overcome their benefactors ? ” 

“ That is a possibility I had overlooked,” she replied, 
“ one that Cecil at least, would contemplate without 
dissatisfaction. His object would be achieved and the 
instrument for which there is no further use destroyed in the 
process, but Nature does not provide two men like him 
in a hundred years. 4 Noble and humble,’ i9 the phrase 
for him.” 

The observation seemed to bring her back to her usual 
self, and she continued : 

“ As I promised to hand you over to Dr. Turnbull by 
mid-day, we must do our explanation another time. Just 
now I can put it all in an eggshell. They are increasing, we 
diminishing in numbers. It isn’t only that we have more 

1 


n8 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


boys than girls—the boys have not long lives. They come 
into the world as beautiful babies, and as children they are 
still more charming, but looked at closely they are too 
slender, too fine in the bone, and it may be against them 
that they have a close family resemblance to one another. 
They are active, but not strong, and many die between the 
ages of twenty and twenty-five. As families are not large, 
there has been a serious falling off in population, and it 
is no longer made good by adherents who used to be con¬ 
tinually arriving from their hiding places. The caves are 
all empty now. I can give you on the spot a curious proof 
of what I say. Look at the barrier ! ” The morning haze 
had now disappeared and an unclouded sun was shining, 
so I could easily see the barrier stretching away for miles. 

“ Watch it,” she said, “ while I make a noise they will 
know. It is a cry often heard in the woodland.” 

It was indeed a strange cry, and had I heard it when 
alone in the wood it would have been puzzling to decide 
whether it came from a wild animal or a human being. 
The sound roused into life what had seemed to be a number 
of dead logs lying at intervals along the barrier. From the 
way in which their tails were carried, I saw that they were 
great dogs of the old type of rough-haired greyhound. 

“ Men acted as sentinels till lately,” she explained, “ but 
they cannot be spared any longer, and so dogs had to be 
trained under the supervision of veterans no longer fit 
for hard work. While our numbers have declined those 
of the wild people have increased. You will be surprised 
to hear it considering the number of deaths even in a mild 
winter and that the feeble whether old or young are killed 
whenever they can be caught. It is due to the numbers 
born. An old and worn out race is nursing a young and 
vigorous one—a lean and slippered pantaloon dandling 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 119 

the baby fated to destroy him ! Every one of our men has 
to give up some time to learn soldiering because of an appre¬ 
hension that the savages will learn to co-operate with one 
another and attack their benefactors. Look ! this is old 
William, one of our military heroes, who, at the end of his 
life has become a commander of dogs.” 

A frail old figure in a flowing homespun cloak had indeed 
appeared and was rating the dogs that lay down again at 
his bidding. 

“ Let us get further in among the trees,” urged Bessie. 
“ I fancy the dogs are still suspicious. I would not for 
worlds that old William caught sight of us. He would 
talk about it to everyone he met for weeks after. A man 
gossip is ten times worse than a woman gossip.” 

Bessie resumed the conversation in a whisper. “ It is 
luck to have spotted old William at this particular place. 
Further along is my favourite crossing. A good friend 
waits me there.” 

Withdrawing into the woodland, leading ponies that 
made no noise on the bare ground, which being under the 
beeches remained moist in spite of the frost, we skirted, I 
should think, a hundred and fifty yards of barrier, then 
drew up and tied the ponies. 

“ It looks as if I were bringing you into a secret plot,” 
she said with a laugh, as she loosened the cord of her wicker¬ 
work pannier. 

“ Before leading you further into danger, let me explain 
that it is only a conspiracy to feed a poor woman. There 
is no fighting against necessity, and I have no scruples about 
deceiving old William.” 

Time and place were not suitable for discussion, even if 
I had felt inclined to it, so my only reply was to lay hold 
of her well-filled pannier and tell her to march on. Before 


120 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


doing so, she took from the basket a little parcel with hay 
tied round it—this for cleanliness I divined in seeing a 
good thick end of bone sticking out from the hay—and it 
was hardly necessary for her to explain that it was “ a bite 
for my four-footed Charon. ,, She had chosen the best 
possible place to cross in privacy. It was where a tiny 
rivulet glanced down a channel worn deep into the soil. 
Charon rose to his feet as we approached, and turned out 
to be a great, firmly-knit brindled mongrel, who I could 
see would be a formidable enemy to anyone of whom he 
had a suspicion. I have been among dogs all my life and I 
never saw one with a wiser head, though many would only 
have noticed how formidable were the strong jaws, the 
brilliant eye and gleaming teeth. On this occasion, a wag of 
his tail showed that he recognised a friend, and when, at her 
request, I gave him the bone—a large and meaty one— 
his attitude said as plainly as words: “ My friend’s friend 
is my friend.” So we crossed the barrier without disagree¬ 
able incident and crept into the new Heathendom by a 
hole that had been made in the rotten palisade. 

“ He will never forget; you could come back by yourself 
now,” said Bessie, and a little glow came into my heart 
at the idea of her having taken such a possibility into 
consideration. 

I noticed very little difference between the land outside 
the pale and that within. Bessie, speaking in a low voice, 
almost a whisper, said that on the assumption that more 
and more land would be required, the barrier had been 
erected well beyond the cultivated area. Fancy a wilder¬ 
ness in winter, an irregular forest where a sprinkling of 
timber trees stand beside scrubby hawthorn thickets and 
accumulations of bramble. Bessie followed the brook’s 


course. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 121 

“ It is just here,” she said, poised on a large stone round 
which the water bubbled, and pointed to an opening in 
the face of the bank that might have led to the lair of some 
wild animal. Then she gave the sharp, cat-like cry of the 
little owl and a face peered out very cautiously. A shock 
of black untidy hair proclaimed it to be that of a woman, 
and it was followed by the wail of a fretful baby. 

“ Poor things,” whispered Bessie, “ they must be without 
food.” 

Quickly she clambered up and entered on all fours. 
What she did in a few seconds took me as many minutes, 
and before I got into the dark cave, she had produced a 
vessel of milk and was feeding both the mother and the 
child. At her side was a dog very like the one on the 
barrier. He stopped his endearments to show his white 
teeth and growl on my entry, but at her “ Hush, Roger, 
a friend! ” he resumed his former attentions and paid no 
other heed to the stranger. 

“ I have not forgotten you,” speaking to the dog as though 
he were a human friend, “ take that and go to your corner.” 

He marched off wagging his tail, and Bessie, having 
found something to eat for all, became busy emptying her 
pannier talking to the woman the while and giving me time 
to look round. I imagine the child must have been about 
twelve months old or so; at any rate, it was weaned and 
the mother was feeding it with bread and milk. 

Bessie gave me a look which said plainly: “ Don’t ask 
questions just now; we can talk afterwards.” 

An altogether new Bessie was disclosed What a fool 
I had been not to observe her hands! It had often occurred 
to me that hands were a revelation of character. Hers had 
efficiency written all over them ; hands that never seemed 
to move rapidly, but that was because there was no fuss 


122 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


or superfluous movement. They unloaded her parcels of 
food and laid each away while she told what was to be done 
with it. One was for to-day’s use, another for to-morrow, 
and a third would keep and would be something in the 
house in case of another supply being delayed. There 
was bread, fresh meat, cheese, salt meat, salt fish and salt 
butter. Then the same hands became motherly as she took 
the child and while cooing and talking to it, examined 
skin and clothing, putting on and taking off, while all the 
time the baby was kept happy and smiling 

While she proceeded, I noticed that the cave was formed 
by a rift in the chalk which had become filled with earth. 
The first excavator was probably a badger or a fox, but 
human hands had recently been busy, and the absence of 
any accumulation of earth outside made it look probable 
that it was only thrown out when the flooded rivulet was in 
a condition to wash it away. No furniture was visible, 
unless the word could be applied to a bed made by covering 
the floor of the cave with dried grass and heather, a log to 
sit on and a few vessels of rough earthenware. The girl 
inhabitant was young, but it was difficult to guess her age. 
She was small, but more inclined to be plump than thin. 
Her eyes were gentle in repose, but at the slightest alarm 
they lit up and glowed like those of a wild beast at bay. I 
could guess what would happen if she were at bay by a little 
incident that happily was followed by no grave mishap. 

Our first warning was given by the dog. He dropped 
his bone under his fore paws, cocked his ears and gave a 
low growl like that with which he had greeted my entrance. 
In a moment the woman climbed to the roof of the cave 
by some out-jutting bits of rock which I had not previously 
noticed in the imperfect light, picked up a stone very 
gently and peeped out. Bessie followed her example, 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 123 

and so did I. What we saw was only a man chasing some 
animal, which we thought must be a squirrel. Probably 
it had a limb, or maybe two, broken by a stone, as he got it 
while it was making ineffectual attempts to get up a beech 
tree. He retired with it to a thicket. He took the direction 
exactly opposite to ours, and shortly after Bessie and I 
started on the return journey. 

She spoke little till we got back to civilised territory. 
Then she said anxiously and with a curious timidity: 

“ You do not blame me for breaking my father’s rule, 
do you ? I could not help it.” 

“ It is impossible for you to imagine me capable of doing 
so,” I replied fervently, “ but won’t you tell me all the 
story ? ” 

Her face beamed in a way that filled me with self-reproval 
for not having earlier discerned her gentleness and humility. 

“ The tale is very simple,” she replied. “ Had I been 
a boy I would have been an adventurer in this waste, for I 
have loved to wander in it from childhood, but I am only 
a girl and was afraid to go further in by myself than what 
would be a good run back. I can run and swim as well as 
most, but at fighting would have no chance. Last April 
when getting spring flowers just outside the barrier, I saw 
this woman carrying her child under her arm in a way they 
have and looking among the beech and oak trees for any 
mast or acorns that might have been left from last autumn. 
She was about fifty yards away and did not see me or the 
dog, the same that you saw in the cave. Every now and 
then she sat down to rest and looked very tired and emaciated. 
I had some bread and jam in my pocket and was hesitating 
about giving her it when I caught sight of a man evidently 
stalking her. He too, looked like some famished wild 
beast, for the hardest time in the year is that which comes 


I2 4 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

between winter and summer. When within twenty yards 
or so, he cast a stone at her from his sling. Luckily, it hit 
the trunk of the tree under which she was sitting. In the 
twinkling of an eye she managed to get to a tree further away 
while he was fixing another stone in his sling. He was 
again foiled and he started to run towards her brandishing 
a heavy stick. For a moment I was paralysed by horror. 
A fight between two powerful men is bad enough, but be¬ 
tween two famine-stricken wretches it was dreadful, so I 
set the dog at him just when the woman had stumbled 
and fallen. She lay still and the dog went straight for the 
man. He yelled and flourished his club, but the dog with 
his tail between his legs and an ugly grin on his face rushed 
as he has often done at one of the forest boars; whereupon 
the man saved himself in the squirrel’s way by springing 
up a tree. I then hurried up, seized the baby and telling 
the woman to follow, ran for it. Since then I have been 
in the habit of giving her food at times when I know she 
must be pinched, and made over to her the secret cave 
in which I used to play housekeeping when a girl. Its near¬ 
ness to the barrier has been her salvation, as the fiercest of 
these people avoid as far as they can a neighbourhood in 
which there are men with guns and fierce dogs.” 

I expressed a wonder that they did not themselves keep 
dogs, to which she replied that they stole every stray puppy 
they could lay hands on, but all living things disappeared 
in the winter except the wild creatures which could take 
care of themselves to the extent of avoiding extermination. 

“ Wasn’t the baby splendid ? ” exclaimed Bessie as soon 
as, with light feet, we had got well away from the barrier. 
She paused as if waiting for an enthusiastic endorsement. 
Not having been more than once or twice in highly polished 
society I lied, as a famous Scotsman “ jocked,” with diffi- 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 125 

culty, and answered that other things being so interesting, 
my attention had not been concentrated on the infant, 
but it seemed to conform to the impression one had of 
babies. It was not very clean, it cried when it felt hungry 
and crowed when its little stomach was replenished. When 
it could absorb no more, it became so aggressively happy that 
in pure joy it began pulling its mother’s abundant hair, 
and when that attack was foiled, tried playfully to gouge 
her eye out with its finger; in short, behaved in the way 
usual with a little monkey of that age. 

“ You may be disappointed,” I concluded, “ with my 
want of appreciation, but the child seemed to me just a 
child differing in no essential from other little persons 
whom the fond mother holds up for admiration. To her 
doting mind its playfulness indicates that it will grow up 
gay and generous; she forgets that the engaging kitten 
becomes the gloomy cat. If, when stuffed with food 
it becomes dull, its dullness is interpreted as wisdom. To 
me, the beloved offspring of one is just the same as the 
blessed offspring of another. Your child of the waste 
does not differ by one iota from any other child.” 

Bessie hung with concentrated eagerness on my descrip¬ 
tion, just as though every commonplace word had been 
weighed as a wise-acre might his platitudes. At the end, 
her features lit up like the top of an eastern hill when the 
sun rises. 

“ I am glad that I brought you,” and no vein of irony 
could find a place in her cooing voice. “ I was afraid 
you might have noticed something dreadful. When you 
said monkey, I felt cold all over. You cannot guess how 
relieved I was when you made me feel that the child of the 
outcast is exactly like those of the civilised. If it is the 
same, it is better, because it is sturdier than those in our 


126 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


own c rising one ’ class. The pity is that it will never 
look so well again. Hunger will prevent its growing. 
Why until a few years ago our own cattle grew so weak 
from want of winter food that they had to be half led, 
half lifted to pasture when the spring grass came. They 
never became a fourth of the weight of the beasts we breed 
now. 

“ If growing children have to go through a famine once 
a year how can they become full-grown men and women ? 
That’s at the very essence of my gospel. Don’t trust to 
relieving them with food in wintry weather. Collect 
these infants when quite young, by force if necessary, 
feed and school them and you will rejuvenate the race. 
Now we must get off, no more time for lagging. Turn this 
over in your mind and I am sure you will support my plan.” 

She was evidently “ bucked,” as you would say, by my 
very commonplace remarks about the child, for she dashed 
her little steed with a yell of delight at a broad drain which 
separated the desert from the sown, took it at a flying leap 
and swept over a piece of turf as if she were behind a pack 
in full cry. As I followed with an eye on her tossing hair, 
I felt like a ruled but unruly groom ! 


XIII 


The traveller discovers that he has been taken to 
Dr. Turnbull’s house as a patient suffering from one 

OF THE DELUSIONS COMMON IN THE SETTLEMENT. The 
DOCTOR IS ASSURED OF HIS SANITY AND ALLOWS HIM TO COPY 
FROM AN OLD MANUSCRIPT THE STORY OF THE FIRST Dr. 

Turnbull’s escape from Glasgow 

TS lie a physician in the modern sense or only the 
Medicine Man of a tribe had become a very practical 
question in my mind when, in the light of a fire of logs 
reinforced by that of two wax candles, I sat down opposite 
to Dr. Turnbull. Until then, there had been no oppor¬ 
tunity for real conversation. On our arrival his salute 
was only “ Hallo, Betty.” Her introduction was but to 
say : “ This is the visitor father spoke to you about,” after 
which she made off, saying as she went: “ Don’t heed his 
calling me Betty ; I choose to be Bessie and nothing else.” 

Dr. Turnbull had been called away just as we were 
starting our mid-day meal, and he did not return till dusk. 
His absence left me with an hour or two in which to become 
acquainted with this distant part of the Settlement. It 
was like the other, girt with swelling woods, had the same 
homesteads with thatched cottages, gardens and patches of 
meadow or ploughland. Apparently, the land was part 
of a plateau that had been damp or even marshy in character, 

127 


128 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


as there were many open drains leading the water down to 
a great ditch on the edge of the wood and thence to the 
river. There were men in the fields digging out new 
channels. 

Of the houses, the most remarkable was that at which 
I was a guest. It was large and looked like a number of 
low-roofed cottages merged into one. Each had a door of 
its own and a small window. A shrewder head than mine 
would have gathered the character of the place more 
quickly. Always keen to make acquaintance with my 
whereabouts, I started for a walk round, after a brief but 
sufficient meal. Later on something will be said about 
this portion of the Settlement, but to avoid unnecessary 
mystification it may be as well to set down in plain terms 
what had dawned on my mind, but never till now assumed 
definite shape. It was that I had been set down as a 
harmless lunatic, one suffering from a great delusion. I 
was a patient rather than a guest in the Doctor’s home. 
It was the character of this dwelling that turned suspicion 
into certitude. The house consisted of six cottages, only 
one of which was occupied by the Doctor. In each of the 
others a patient was located who was feeble-minded. They 
were sunning themselves on the south side of a wall where 
benches had been placed. Their attitude to one another 
would have been highly amusing had it not been pathetic. 

As is customary in such cases each thought all the others 
crazy, and himself or herself the only sane member of the 
company. Consequently, they irritated one another when 
they attempted conversation, but were willing and eager to 
talk to a new-comer. 

Crazy Bob was always running away from a Shape his 
fancy saw at his lintel; crazy Nan was continually taking 
some man for her father and embarrassing him with attention, 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 129 

her latest victim was no less a person than the Doctor. 
Equally silly were the crazes of Dick, Jack and Nell. To 
a layman like myself they had the physical appearance of 
being sturdy rustics, restless eyes only giving a hint of 
intellectual defect. One of them gave me a shock ; he asked 
where I was staying, and on my answering that I was the 
Doctor’s guest: “ He is the Doctor’s guest, tehee, tehee ! ” 
he said. 

He had a thin vacant laugh that seemed to be an indication 
in itself of lunacy, and when the others replied in chorus : 
“ He’ll soon come to us, tehee, tehee,” I could not help 
what I knew to be a senseless irritation and left them. 

Off I started at a sharp pace, but ere long I found myself 
reconstructing the conspiracy. No doubt, Cecil, when he 
found a stranger appearing in the midst, wearing what in 
his eyes must have appeared a fantastic dress and speaking 
the native tongue in a strange accent, must have concluded 
that here was a “ lunatic.” At the same time one hopes 
that he discovered some glimmering of an intelligence 
superior to Dr. Turnbull’s feeble-witted patients. 

“ There’s no harm in the poor chap, but for this 
craze he would be one of the best of us,” would in all 
probability be the kindly verdict that he passed on to 
Captain Hart. 

So concentrated was I in imagining what was likely to 
have taken place, that I walked on for miles, and might 
have been lost had it not been that my way led up the 
river and I had only to follow it in the opposite direction 
to get back to the starting point. 

The shadows of night were creeping over the valley 
before I got back to the Doctor’s house. I was tired enough 
to appreciate a rest before the blazing wood fire. 

A walk seldom fails to clarify my ideas, and they had 


1 3 o THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

become definite before a word was said. First, it was 
clear that in the circumstances I had been so far treated with 
kindness. Hart had apparently agreed with Cecil that I 
was a simple soul living under a hallucination. They 
evidently pitied me so much that for them to listen to my 
story would have been as disagreeable as watching a friend 
exposing a sore that demanded a surgical operation. Hart’s 
daughter was dear to him as the apple of his eye, yet he 
had not hesitated to let her be my companion in a journey 
that was long as journeys were reckoned in the Settlement. 
Then I was not so completely purged of human vanity 
as to believe myself wholly uninteresting to a young and 
intelligent girl. In her heart of hearts she must have 
wondered who I was, what I was and whence I came. 
When to myself I frankly admitted a share of human vanity, 
it was equally plain that she, as a daughter of Eve, must 
have inherited a touch of the curiosity for which that 
experimentalist in forbidden fruit forfeited Eden; yet 
she asked no question. She ignored every hint that I was 
not only eager but willing to relate my story. Eliminating 
every other explanation, the conclusion arrived at was that 
her father had enjoined her neither to ask nor listen to 
anything about myself. 

It appeared possible that other inhabitants had been given 
a hint to maintain the same attitude. At any rate, pains 
had been taken to remove everything strange in my outward 
appearance. Captain Hart had found me a suit of clothes 
such as were worn by himself and his neighbours, and 
Bessie had used a very coaxing smile to persuade me to 
substitute them for garments that ordinary to me, would 
have looked foreign. She had also on more than one 
occasion mimicked my pronunciation and taught me that 
of the place and period. Everything was done and done 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 131 

very gently to induce me to lay aside external signs 
of the delusion under which they thought me to be 
labouring. 

Meditation produced a feeling far from unpleasant. 
It showed that I had been accepted as a friend and equal, 
not on account of written or other formal credentials, but 
on my own account. It was easy to guess that whatever 
was the urgent business that took Hart over here the veiy 
first day after the conclusion of his river voyage, he had 
taken occasion to tell what he knew of my case. It would 
have been churlish of me, when they trusted me, to disturb 
their faith. At any rate, if Dr. Turnbull had worn the 
look of a devil incarnate, I would have pawned my soul 
to make friends with him. Did he not keep the chronicle 
for this reversion of civilisation ? Was he not the most 
learned in its history ? I was prepared to lick the dust 
at his feet if he would cast a light, were it only the feeblest 
glimmer, on the events which preceded this culmination. 
So far I had only known Dr. Turnbull by repute and a 
brief hurried interview. Now that I was meeting him 
at his own fireside, I was all on edge to study and know 
him inside and out. 

“ A Scot ” was my first mental comment, for a thousand 
years are but as a day in the history of that race. The 
Scot changeth not any more than the Jew, never mind 
what seas have roared between him and his native land. 
Look for the type in the portraits of the ancient kings or in the 
old statuary. There you will find it as marked as it is in 
the Glasgow Baillies, the Minister, Elders of the General 
Assembly, the schoolmasters, the doctors and the sportsmen 
of to-day. 

I think Dr. Turnbull was conscious that he must have 
resembled the portrait of one of his own ancestors as Wilkie 


132 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

might have painted it. In his prime he had been exception¬ 
ally strong, but advancing years found him spare and almost 
gaunt. His mouth was hidden under a shaggy and grizzled 
beard. Grizzled too were the eyebrows that hung over 
his large grey eyes, like thatch abov^two pent-house windows. 
His air of genuineness and sincerity inspired confidence. 
The expression of his face was that of a democrat of the 
old style, a democrat such as Scotland alone can produce. 
One felt sure of his breeding. One saw in the mind’s eye 
his first progenitor in 44 poortith cauld ” brought up on cakes 
and porridge, literally working his way to and through a 
university that had a special care for the poor, no lily¬ 
handed gentleman, but one who had toiled with the toilers 
on equal terms and thought nothing of it. To make the 
picture complete he had a clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of 
tobacco and a goblet of whisky on the table. 

44 Don’t ask, but help yourself,” he said, “ it’s all good 
of its sort. The 4 bacca ’ was grown in my garden and 
cured by myself; the jar that holds it is an antique, and 
part of a German shell in the long ago ; the Auld Kirk too is 
home-made. Tradition says that a canny man left his 
breeks behind in the old days in order to bring a 4 worm ’ 
for a little still. And what have you been making of your¬ 
self since Betty left ? Isn’t it bad luck by-the-bye that 
they should have called her Bessie ? They try to stick to 
the old names and a good thing too, but Bessie was the maid- 
of-all-work, she that came in first of the guizards to 4 red 
sticks, red stools. Here come in a pack of fools,’ while many 
an officer must have had a Lady Betty among his aunts ? ” 

44 Can you fancy the great Queen Bess as Queen Betty ? ” 
I asked. 

44 Tutt! The Harridan ! Who’s going to choose a name 
because it belonged to her ? Had it been Mary Queen of 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 133 

Scots now ! Let them that like call her Bessie ; she’ll aye be 
Betty to me,” he retorted, “ but you haven’t answered 
my question yet.” 

Having resolved to come to close quarters instantly, 
I replied that I had been looking at some of his harmless 
lunatics and hearing about their delusions, a subject of very 
great interest to me. 

He lifted his heavy eyebrows and exclaimed slowly and 
pointedly : “ Of very great interest, and why ? ” 

“ Because,” I answered with a little of his manner, “ I 
have been ruminating and rather think that my new friends 
have begun to suspect that I too have what you call a bee 
in my bonnet, and they have sent me to you that you may do 
your best to get it out.” 

He laughed and remarked: “ That’s the downright 

English blundering way. Now if you were like me, with 
Scottish blood in your veins, you would have kept these 
ruminations up your sleeve and approached this delicate 
subject prudently and cautiously, leading up to the point 
by degrees. I promised myself some interest and even 
entertainment from your case, and maybe a clean bill at 
the end, but the English never had either sense or tact, 
and you’ve spoilt all my plans.” 

“ Not at all, Doctor,” I replied. “ What good can come 
of making a great mouthful of a small and simple matter ? 
Acting on your invitation, I, while you were out, had a 
glance through your bookcase. I see that you have been 
a great collector of literature of the century from which I 
come. Nobody living in this Settlement knows the period 
better than you. Let me tell my story and call me a humbug 
if I am not able to prove that the words of an eye-witness are 
in this case of more value than the most complete collection 
of writings.” 


K 


i 3 4 T RE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

Dr. Turnbull’s grey eyes opened, then half shut as 
though he were trying to look right inside his visitor. Then 
he deliberately replenished his glass, but I noticed that he 
put in only a spoonful of whisky and filled to the brim with 
cold water. Evidently he realised that he would need all 
his wit to cope with one who was either sane or a most 
tremendously cunning lunatic. 

“ My young friend,” he said in a graver voice than he 
had used before, “ I like your appearance and can readily 
understand how Cecil and Hart were drawn to you at 
first sight, but that counts for little; I will not say that 
it counts nothing with me as a physician. Let us get to 
plain ground. I would like to hear your story if you really 
wish to tell it; if you do not wish, that ends the whole 
matter as far as I am concerned. Should you on the other 
hand wish to know anything about me, you have only to 
ask. Indeed, I would much rather you asked because in the 
exercise of his profession a doctor wants frankness from his 
patient, and in return, should be frank himself. You must 
look upon me as a friend to be trusted ; otherwise, there is 
nothing I can do for your benefit. A kindly Scot can be 
as direct as any bluff Englishman ! Now ask what questions 
you like and consider this only a friendly means to make 
us acquainted with one another.” 

I thanked him and said that I thought his proposition 
most reasonable. It was but an idle curiosity that made me 
wonder how the Settlement had managed to set up a College 
of Medicine from which he had obtained his degree. 

“ Dod,” he exclaimed with a return to his first manner, 
“ no Scot could have put that with a cannier wit. It’s 
verra right you should know that we haven’t got as far as 
colleges yet. Did you expect me to say Glasgow, Edinburgh, 
St. Andrew’s or Aberdeen ? No, no ! the first of my fore- 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 135 

bears was a doctor, and there being no other in the com¬ 
munity, he taught his son what he knew himself and that son 
carried it on to the next generation, and so you see I inherited 
my degree as a gentleman of the old time inherited his 
father’s coat-of-arms.” 

44 And I suppose with their medical lore they handed down 
their scraps of the Scottish dialect which I notice in your 
conversation ? ” 

Dr. Turnbull’s eyes blazed with anger. 44 Scottish 
dialect! ” he exclaimed. 44 That’s a queer bit of ignorance 
to be dug out of the grave where it has rested a good two 
hundred years. Scottish language you mean! Do you 
think that when we half-dozen Scottish families have for 
all this time cherished the memory of Scotland, making a 
circle of our own among the Southerners, that we forgot 
the language ? We would sooner have forgotten medicine 
than the writings of Auld Dunbar, Blind Harry and Gavin 
Douglas, the Songs of Burns, the 4 Heart of Midlothian ’ and 
4 The Antiquary,’ the only language ever invented that can 
deliver the thought clean and clear to the understanding. 
English by comparison is what you may call a high horse 
language, fine for paying compliments in, but no use for 
heart talking to heart.” He pronounced it 44 hairt talking 
to hairt.” 

I only partly assuaged his wrath by confessing that I 
had spoken in ignorance and that my acquaintance with 
Scotland was slight, and the names he had mentioned were 
to me names only. 

44 Have you preserved copies of their works ? ” I asked. 

The question by some mental process, which at the 
moment I could not follow, brought him back to the purpose 
of the interview, and it seemed to me that it brought with 
it also a touch of suspicion. 


136 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

“ We have a library of them,” he replied, “ and you may 
like to know that the first and second generations of my 
family found time among all the tribulation to collect every 
book and every newspaper that had escaped destruction. 
As a result, there is in my possession a large collection of 
literature published in the reign of George V. Reading 
these books and journals has been my hobby and has filled 
hours that would have otherwise been very dull to an 
unmarried man who has no domestic pleasures or duties. 
It may interest you,” he added meaningly, “ to know that 
there is nobody living who has so full and intimate a know¬ 
ledge of Great Britain in the early part of the twentieth 
century as I have.” 

“ Except myself,” I said very quietly, stifling an impulse 
to break into laughter. The Doctor had completely given 
himself away, but it was necessary to avoid irritating him. 
If I did that, there was an end to any hope of securing 
his friendly help or co-operation, and it was plain that he 
was irascible and accustomed to think his word was law. 
He reminded me of a gnarled old oak as he sat opposite 
with a frown on his heavy face. Yet he had to be made 
to yield, and my own persistency came into play, so that I 
could not help repeating the two words: “ Except myself,” 
firmly and in a voice that was quietly challenging. 

He was quick to notice it and answered sarcastically, 
“ I suppose you have duplicates of all these papers and with 
your superior brain have extracted more from them in a week 
than I have done in fifty years ? ” 

“ Not at all,” I answered sweetly. “ I would never 
dream of pitting my brain against yours. The difference is 
only between seeing things and reading about them. Suppose 
you could raise Newton from the dead and asked him 
a trivial question, say, the quickest way to get to-day from 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 137 

his old home in Wiltshire to Threadneedle Street in London, 
would his mighty intellect be of as much avail as that of a 
commercial traveller ? Just try to answer a similar question. 
Suppose yourself in a motor journeying from Cheapside, 
down Ludgate Hill, along Fleet Street and the Strand, past 
Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square, and thence to Marble 
Arch, could you picture the traffic or describe the notable 
places by the way as well as those to whom the route is 
familiar ? ” 

“ I’ll grant it’s a fair test,” he replied with the gallantry 
of one who would not take refuge in a quibble. “ I know 
what a motor is. They call it a 1 stink-pot ’ in one of my 
books, and I gather it to be a devilish and dangerous in¬ 
vention smoking behind and emitting a most evil smell as 
it scurries along, till there comes an accident or a break¬ 
down, after it has startled hens, sent dogs yammering, 
frightened young people, run over the old, lost its brake 
going down a hill, and smashed the shop windows.” 

“ Listen now, Doctor,” I said as he halted, “ and don’t 
think me wishful to argue. It is only to convince you of 
my own good faith. You speak of ancient history, and 
how is it possible that you could know how rapidly the old 
jolting ’bus has been improved ? The car of to-day runs 
along noiselessly; in it you can talk as comfortably as in 
this room, even if your companion has the low voice which 
is said to be an excellent thing in women. It passes through 
traffic you have no conception of, throngs crowding out of 
the city, throngs crowding into it, huge petrol-driven omni¬ 
buses full to the last seat, huger lorries carrying furniture 
and other goods, vans, drays, carts, all obedient to the 
policeman’s finger. You can have no idea of that tide 
and counter-tide till you have gone through it.” 

He was too combative to surrender to a first attack, 


138 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

but he was rudely shaken. When every statement he 
quoted from a book was met with a torrent of contradiction, 
explanation or enlargement, as the case might be, he was 
glad to change the subject by asking for my story. 

As I told it Dr. Turnbull listened silently, but with an 
attention that made itself felt, it was so intense. I was 
afraid that he would dismiss the whole thing as a monstrous 
improbability, but instead, he began to tell me that he was 
a Sun worshipper. He said he had read all he could find 
about religion, but without any satisfaction. As far as 
could be seen, we owed everything, including our existence, 
to the Sun. We live by light and we perish in darkness, 
and all life comes from the Sun. His warm rays bring 
out the buds in spring when the birds sing and mate, ripen 
the grain, and without him there would be food neither 
for man nor beast. Growth is feeblest in winter. You 
can notice it in children as well as in calves and foals. The 
Sun’s warmth revives life in plants that have withered and 
almost died in winter. Deprived of his warmth, life recedes 
and tends to vanish; when it is restored, life follows it. 
The Sun divides day from night and season from season. 
He is the giver of seed-time and harvest, and the lord of 
all life. 

“ I sound the depths of my ignorance when trying to 
explain what I feel to be true,” he said, “ but how can 
anyone believe that the Sun called into existence intelligent 
human inhabitants for this little planet only ? There may 
be in other planets inhabitants gifted with powers far 
beyond any we dream of. It is a perfectly reasonable 
assumption that some planet may have inhabitants far 
superior to man, exceeding him in intelligence as much as 
man excels the dumb animals.” 

He would not go so far as to say without the authority 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 139 

of witnesses that there are inhabitants of Mars or the Moon 
who could traverse space and endow a native of the Earth 
with a share of their transcendent power, neither was he 
prepared to contradict my statement, but “ You have 
been there,” he concluded, “ and you are here, so you may 
look upon me as a friendly neutral.” 

Then with a touch of humour he said that it was no 
great boon to ask for years double those of Methuselah. 

“ Man, it was a young kind of thing to do,” he said. 
“ When you get to my age, you’ll not be so keen on going 
on for ever like the Wandering Jew. Your energy gets 
burnt up and your brain weary, even if you miss the rheu¬ 
matic pains which are a curse to this ill-drained country. 
Eternal life without health and youth would not be heaven 
but hell. Many of the first settlers when they had to face 
the miserable and hopeless life which was all the place gave 
them in the early days, did away with themselves and many 
more would have liked to finish but hadn’t pluck enough 
to take the plunge. Others keep their grip on life and 
fight as long as a spark is left.” 

Now there came a pause, and I saw a curious change of 
expression come over the good Doctor’s face. It was 
absurd in a way, yet it did not make me laugh. The rugged 
features puckered for a moment, and then, as I have seen 
the clouds in a wild, tossing sky break and disclose a patch 
of April blue, they seemed to dissolve in tenderness and 
regret. “ Whether hallucinated or not I like you, and now 
that I have to go out, will leave you with a treasure that 
I trust to few.” 

He went to a small oak coffer that might have held a 
Bible in one of our churches in the day of Cardinal Wolsey 
and took from it what appeared to be a book wrapped in 
sheepskin. 


140 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

“ Now you’ll not take it near the fire,” he said, “ and ye 
maunna smoke when you’re reading it, and if you go out¬ 
doors, if it’s only for a second, you’ll roll it up and put it 
in the box. You’ll not on any account take it beyond 
these four walls, and if you copy it or any part of it, you’ll 
take care it’s not smudged ! It’s the story of my forebears 
who escaped from the sack of Glasgow.” 

No priest, were he ever so devoted, could have carried 
the sacramental vessels with more solemn piety and devotion 
than were in his bearing when he laid before me the bundle 
in sheepskin. A gleam of humour, nevertheless, passed 
across his face as if in self-mockery. 

“ You’ll be thinking that there’s no fool like an old one,” 
he said. “ When I was young and rash as you, I would 
have called it doddering superstition; for it is only about 
the dead that are dead and done with. They have played 
their part; they are mouldering in the grave ; their bones 
and blood have passed into the ivy and grass. Long ago, 
their adventures would have been turned into verse like 
fables of Jason and Medea, of Agamemnon and Helen, 
Ajax and the slave girl Briseis, Roland and Oliver, Arthur and 
Lancelot. Why, nineteen-twentieths of the people here 
put the stories told them of the old British Empire along 
with those of ancient Troy and the isle where Calypso 
entertained Ulysees. I generally try to hide it, but at 
bottom there’s always the feeling that these musty old 
papers make a living bridge between me and my ancestors. 
I don’t really think you will mock either at them or me, 
and it’s only habit that makes me enjoin you to take care 
of them. Had I not felt sure you would, they would never 
have been taken out of their bit boxie ! ” 

There are few men who have not an hour in which they 
give way to sentiment, be their guard against it ever so 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 141 

vigilant, and the Doctor I could see was divided between an 
impulse to give free expression to thoughts whose surging 
he usually kept under severe control, and an idea that 
doing so would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. There 
was no need on my part to say anything, I could only give 
him a look of sympathy and understanding, and probably 
he was grateful for my silence. 


XIV 

The first Dr. Turnbull’s account of his escape from 
Glasgow when it was sacked by the coloured army. 
How he makes his way to Aberfoyle—the village to 

WHICH HE HAD SENT HIS WIFE 

N O sooner was lie gone than I became dead to the 
world in a study of the documents he had handed me, 
and as he might possibly change his mind, I lost no time 
in getting ready to transcribe them. The heading of the 
first was in the cramped hand which comes of writing out 
many prescriptions. It was headed : 

Narration of Thomas Turnbull, M.D. (Edinburgh). 

I wrote the first part of this narrative while waiting 
in urgent fear of death under a heap of masonry in order 
to let survivors know my fate if I should be starved to 
death in this strange prison. I am perplexed to know 
what has happened. Apparently, I have been lying un¬ 
conscious, but there is no means of knowing how long. My 
recollections are as follows: 

Everybody in Glasgow thought that a Bolshevist 
revolution was on the cards. Rumours of the kind had 
often been heard recently, and though I did not believe 
them, it seemed only prudent to send my wife and child into 
a place of safety, and there did not seem to be a better plan 
142 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 143 

than that of despatching them to a remote hill farm belonging 
to my wife’s uncle. It is about three miles from the Clachan 
of Aberfoyle and a bit more from the station. I saw her 
and little Neddy, my infant son, and Janet the maid into 
the train at Queen Street, going back afterwards to Sauchie- 
hall Street, where several patients were expecting me. I 
promised to follow the household if the outlook grew worse. 

Mrs. Turnbull was almost hysterical at the station 
and refused to go into the train unless I agreed to do this. 
For a little while things went on quietly and people were 
beginning to laugh and say that there had been a false 
alarm. Then fear and panic got into the air. A march 
of the unemployed was taking place when suddenly the 
bagpipes by which it was accompanied stopped and so did 
the procession. A hum of talk arose and even while it 
was going on the ranks began to thin. Men whispering 
to one another with very white faces slipped away up the 
closes. Some of the bolder sort gathered in bands and 
began to break windows and loot shops. I was just hearing 
from my neighbour that wireless messages had been received 
saying that assaults from the air had been launched simul¬ 
taneously on all the southern towns when, with the fearfulest 
noise, a bomb exploded in Glasgow ; fires broke out, streets 
were laid flat and the air resounded to a yelling of anguish 
and despair such as might have come from the bottom¬ 
less pit. 

There is nothing further in my memory except a 
vague impression of a still more awful explosion. Nothing 
can I recall after that till I came to in this place, whether 
dead or alive I could not be sure, till after a time spent 
between waking and sleeping, or more properly between 
life and death, complete consciousness returned. My 
first instinct was to discover if any bones were broken or any 


i 4 4 CTHE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

serious injury sustained. Being able to move without 
pain I concluded that the answer was in the negative. 
Above, two huge masses of wall had fallen against one 
another and formed a cave-like protection. How they 
leaned could easily be perceived through the daylight 
which came through a number of little chinks. My immed¬ 
iate fear was that one or other of the walls would give 
way and I would be crushed to death and buried under¬ 
neath. This grew into an obsession, so that I was afraid 
to move lest a support should be accidentally disturbed. 
Another reason for lying quiet was that the most horrible 
sounds began to reach my prison, the worst of them those 
that must have arisen so often in old days. In the Old 
Testament it is recorded as an every-day occurrence of 
warfare that the people of such and such a town or country 
had been “ put to the sword.” Every now and again the 
air was rent by an explosion to the like of which no ears 
had listened even in the terrible German war. It was 
torture to crouch among the stones, but if I ventured to 
move, it seemed to my excited ears that the noises began 
to rise in close vicinity. 

At first I hearkened dully, like one emerging from 
a heavy sleep, but the return of consciousness was accelerated 
by the continual din, a commingling of strange, uncouth 
shouts of men fighting, shrieking of women, wailing of 
children and the bursting of explosives. It stung me into 
mental life, and at the same time paralysed me with abject 
terror. My days had been spent in laboratories or among 
books, and my disposition is timid to the verge of cowardice. 
No soldierly resolution came to my heart, only fear and 
despair, so that I would willingly have gone back to stupor 
and even death. I lay motionless and mentally dead. 
It was neither hope nor courage, but the urgent need of 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 145 

food that roused me from this lethargy. When I noticed 
that the storm centre was shifting perceptibly to the west, 
some glimmer of hope must have come to me or the vague 
desire for food would not have changed into acute hunger. 
The time was approaching sunset and I knew the direction 
because a breeze blew from a sky that began to show the 
colours of evening. In my fear I had not previously noticed 
that there was a crevice on the west side large enough for 
egress. My instincts had been for concealment rather 
than for facing the dangers of the open. 

On taking a look out, a surge of hope lifted my failing 
spirit. I paid no heed to the ruin and desolation, at least 
not with the eye—a picture of it had got into my brain. 
It was only a memory, but burned as vivid as fire many 
a long day and dreaming night. For the moment, I 
scanned the wilderness of stones and household debris , 
lit up here and there by fire and sown with dead bodies, 
for something that might serve as the basket of manna 
dropped to the hungry prophet, and, to my joy, found 
it. The middle of what had been a street was covered 
with wreckage, not of the houses only, but of the vehicles 
that had been passing along—lorries, carts, motors, 
carriages—all that composes the traffic of a great city. 
Among them was a badly smashed baker’s van with loaves 
and cakes scattered about. Such was my basket of manna, 
and for drink there was the clear water bubbling up from 
a broken pipe. 

After I had eaten and drunk, something like composure 
returned, and yet I remained as one in a nightmare. Though 
bereft of the power of thought and resembling a captured 
mouse mesmerised by the play of a savage cat, I had at 
least an instinct to escape. At first, my only thought was 
to get as far away as possible from the carnage and luckily 


146 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

this took me in the direction in which my wife and child 
had gone. Their images returned during a laborious 
journey in which my signpost was a star, for at few places 
could the wreckage of a street or a highway be discerned. 
I had carried bread from the scattered contents of the 
baker’s van, and I was in that dreaming, only half-conscious 
condition, which often follows severe physical or mental 
shock. As I went along dazed and deaved I made little 
mental pictures of the surprise and delight with which 
Neddy and his mother would receive such unexpected gifts. 
You may think it strange for my mind to be taken up with 
such trifles, but after so great a shock physical and mental 
powers are turned upside down, and the trivial is often 
accepted as the important. 

It took me three days and three nights to get to Aber- 
foyle despite the fact that I made a quick physical and mental 
recovery. The marching had to be done at night as was 
made clear the very first morning. I had been toiling on 
in the darkness over a country like the rocky shore of a 
sea which had strewn the land with boulders. During the 
night many times I heard the groaning of wounded or 
dying men, and with difficulty managed to repress the 
doctor’s instinct to succour those in pain. It was compara¬ 
tively easy to do so at night when one hears without seeing 
anything. 

Just as the light was breaking, I nearly stumbled upon a 
youth who had a wound in his mouth, so that he could 
only gasp in a hoarse whisper that he wanted water. This 
I gave, and then shifted him into as comfortable a position 
as possible and was proceeding on my way when the ex¬ 
pression of his eye caught mine. It was so beseeching and 
full of despair as to arrest my steps, but as I hesitated and 
lingered, a low-flying airship came over and someone whose 


7 HE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 147 

brutal laugh was audible, flung out a small bomb or grenade 
as he passed. It did not fall near, but the warning could 
not be disregarded. I did not again look at the young 
man lest I should be tempted to stay, which would have 
only brought about the death of both of us. Rushing to 
a mound of stones, which was probably the ruins of a large 
house, I crept in among them and remained there for the 
day. At nightfall I was irresistibly drawn to the place 
where the wounded one lay, but he was cold and stiff, 
and must have died shortly after I saw him. 

While the daylight lasted the air had been traversed 
by large numbers of ’planes and several had flown close 
to the ruins. One in particular came so near that I could 
see it was manned by dark-complexioned soldiers in a 
uniform new to me. For the first time there dawned on 
my mind an inkling of the fact that the great alliance of 
dark and yellow races, of which rumours had been current 
for years, had planned and carried out from the sea a simul¬ 
taneous attack on the towns of Great Britain. This faint 
suspicion, which was fully confirmed later, quickened my 
steps. Also, there was the memory of an incident at which 
I had laughed when it occurred, but now it seemed to show 
that my wife had been the wiser of the two. She, the 
tenderest of women, had bought a revolver and paid a 
man to teach her to shoot. It was never far from her 
afterwards, and once when I was laughing and chaffing her 
about it, her face had flushed as she exclaimed : <c We are 
drifting into very difficult times, Tommy, and one might 
need a thing like this.” 

Every time I recalled her words my uneasiness inten¬ 
sified, but attempts at hurry were worse than useless. 
There was danger on all sides. From the road came a 
rattle of wheels and guns that told of soldiers on the march. 


148 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

If they halted I could distinctly hear words of command. 
Though the language was foreign, the meaning, or at least 
the character of the orders, could be divined. At first 
it seemed as though the best way would be along the railway 
lines, but incendiaries were at work at the stations. So if 
one walked for a mile or two on the track, a circuit had to 
be made when a station or even a siding was approached. 

There were others than myself struggling to escape 
to the hills. We saw one another’s furtive movements, 
and I think telepathy must have helped us to start a kind of 
greeting to bamboozle a foreigner. It was, to use in place 
of a watchword, some brief Scottish phrase, such as : 6i A braw 
nicht, laird ! ” No Englishman, far less a foreigner, could 
catch the Glasgow accent. Everybody understood without 
telling that it was safer to go singly. Even in bright moon¬ 
light one could glide unobserved from shadow to shadow 
without attracting notice, but a company, were it only of 
two, would have been in greater peril. It was slow and 
difficult going. Two years previously I had walked all the 
way from Glasgow to Aberfoyle in one day, but on this 
occasion it took me three. Every night began with clear and 
perfect moonlight, but every morning before dawn a mist 
had arisen from the meadows and the marshland, so that 
it was best to steal noiselessly along the line till daylight 
mastered the fog. 

In spite of the greatest caution I found myself close 
to the invaders, and was in terror till I recollected that it 
was easy to see them stirring up or adding new material to 
a blazing fire, but those close to the fire could not so easily 
see a man in the thickness of a Scottish mist. It was in such 
a fog that one morning I chose a strange hiding-place, I say 
chose, but it was Hobson’s choice, as it was necessary to get 
out of the way of a body of soldiers, the sound of whose 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 149 

marching step showed them to be unpleasantly near. They 
had evidently been looting each on his own, as their hands 
were full and their pockets bulged. I got out of their way 
by dropping into what had once been a pig-sty, but it is 
doubtful if they would have noticed me in any event, as 
they were so drunk and sleepy that the officer in charge had 
to use his cane to prevent their dropping on the road. They 
held fast to the clocks and other articles that they had stolen, 
but every now and then one would drop a loaf or bottle, 
or a piece of meat. I did not hurry away and so beheld an 
omen that boded no good. It was, that hosts of rooks, 
jackdaws, starlings and sparrows very quickly cleared the 
ground of any eatable that had been dropped or thrown away. 
Streets in Glasgow and in the suburbs lay strewn with food 
and drink at the time of my starting, and up to now so much 
was lying on the ground that scarcity of victuals had not 
struck me as a possibility. I had not calculated that the beasts 
of the field and the birds of the air would demand their share. 

Before reaching Aberfoyle I was alarmed to perceive 
that those who were making the same journey did not 
observe what seemed to me the necessary caution. In the 
early stages it was a rare occurrence to catch sight of a dark 
shadow stealthily advancing and taking advantage of every 
possible cover. Like me they hid in daylight and began 
to move forward between the gloaming and the mirk. My 
idea was that there could not be more of them than half a 
dozen at the outside, and I could not help running over 
in my mind the many week-end or holiday places among the 
hills or on the coast that probably were being approached 
in the same way by desperate and distracted men, for the 
last out-going trains had been crammed with women and 
children sent to these resorts for safety from the supposed 
Bolshevik disturbances. 


L 


150 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

When we got closer to Aberfoyle, the fugitives seemed 
partly to recover hope and confidence. Many like me 
must have been dazed and stupefied at starting, but fresh 
air and exercise even in these awful circumstances had 
helped to revive their spirits. It alarmed me to see them 
formed into groups and marching on briskly in the clear 
moonlight. They were rapidly approaching the Rob Roy 
country, the Highland fastness which in old times had so 
often sheltered the Macgregor and other thieves and cattle- 
lifters. Close in front were the hills of Menteith, and 
behind the quarries of Aberfoyle towered Ben Venue and 
his companion hills. It seemed a natural assumption that 
in this wild country fugitives were safe. So they drew 
together and by the time dawn began to break had got 
within a short distance of the railway station. Visibility 
had ceased to be good when the moon went down, but was 
improving now that the first streaks of dawn were stretching 
across the sky. 

When they drew together and began talking as care¬ 
lessly as they might have done in a Glasgow street three 
days before, I slipped off and crossed the highway that 
leads to the Port of Menteith and Stirling. Taking ad¬ 
vantage of the bushes and trees planted round a large villa, 

I tried to obtain a sight of the famous clachan or village 
of Aberfoyle. The morning light showed that the house, 
which I knew well, had been levelled to the ground. Nervous 
and apprehensive, I cast a glance at the station, or rather, 
at the site on which it stood. The buildings had been 
totally destroyed. 

The discovery had sobered and frightened my travelling 
companions, who numbered about a score. In a panic, 
they started to run for the houses to which evidently they 
had sent their women and children. Just as suddenly they 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 151 

stopped. Whether they had caught a view of the smoking 
ruins or were arrested by a movement in an adjoining 
plantation never can be known. I, too, had seen a move¬ 
ment among the trees, and before I quite realised what 
was taking place, six men in foreign uniforms had begun 
firing into the group with guns that gave off no smoke and 
scarcely any sound. The living men had become dead 
bodies, and the men who had killed them rushed out of 
their cover to make sure that none had escaped, and to 
rifle the pockets of the slain. 

For years this scene came to me in sleep as a dream 
or nightmare, but at the time it did not more than turn 
me into a dead thing with a wooden unintelligent stare. 
Had the soldiers come my way I would have been incapable 
of moving. They returned to their cover laden, talking 
and gesticulating. Evidently their victims had brought 
away their money and valuables. Without casting a glance 
in my direction in a few minutes they departed in an 
aeroplane. My eyes followed it stupidly, yet events had 
been registered in my mind. In imagination I often after¬ 
wards watched that aeroplane flying low over the railway 
track and swinging first to one side and then to the other 
as if search were being made for the hiding places of any 
other fleeing wretches. 

I might have sat staring for hours had not my hand 
been taken by another, which lifted it to a mouth to be 
kissed and fondled, while tears rained hot upon it. My 
wife told me afterwards how long it was before she could 
get any response except that she heard me muttering : 
“ It’s a war of extermination, war of extermination ! ” 

I have a very imperfect memory of what occurred 
during the next few days. The narrative must be read 
in the words of my wife. 


XV 

The doctor’s wife begins the story of her escape 

I HAD much ado to keep from crying after my husband 
left me in the train at Queen Street station, but 
fear of making Janet nervous steadied me. Concealing the 
tears that would not be withheld, by taking the baby and 
kissing him I managed after a while to assume an air of 
cheerfulness, though my heart was heavy and depressed. 
Fortunately there was nobody else in the carriage at first ; 
nor was there any crowd in the train, just the well-off 
people, mostly women and children who had their Highland 
houses and week-end cottages to go to. 

At Maryhill Station, crowds invaded the carriages and 
seemed to consist of working men’s wives and families 
sent to the hills for safety. They were under the guidance 
of policemen. My alarm was not decreased by this evidence 
that the authorities anticipated serious danger. The new 
passengers showed no apprehension, but laughed and sang 
Scottish songs of the type popularised by Harry Lauder. 

Little did I anticipate that their number and rowdiness 
would lead to the saving of our lives. Indeed that was not 
in my head at all; I did not guess what was happening. 
I calculated that after the train was emptied into Aberfoyle 
every house in the little village would be crowded. That the 
passengers knew as much I gathered from their conversation. 
152 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 153 

Ci There’ll no be a bed for one in ten, and they’ll want 
a ransom for it,” said a thrifty-looking wife to another. 
c< Faith,” was the reply, £< when the heather’s burning, it’s 
no every man’s bairn could sleep on the hillside.” 

“ I’m no for wasting time in Aberfoyle,” said the thrifty 
one, c6 what d’ye say about speelin’ the brae and makkin’ for 
the houses ayont. Herd-folk and fairmers aye have byres 
and hemels if the worst comes to the worst.” 

Such talk did not add to one’s cheerfulness. The 
farmhouse at which we had been accustomed to stay in 
summer was easily reached, but it was not ours, and we 
had no special claim on it. Before we could get there 
with the baby it would probably be crowded. The prospect 
made me restless, and I got up and walked along the corridor 
of the train. Many groups of passengers had come out. 
Some stopped their conversation when any one came near ; 
others went on talking. I gathered that all but the young 
and the very thoughtless were anxiously considering where 
they were likely to find places to sleep in. They did 
not imagine that beds could not be found in the 
Highlands. 

At Dunoon, where I went to school, they called me 
<c the open-air freak.” Many a night I have slept out¬ 
doors among these hills and been up and away before the 
herds had wakened. So when we left the station I managed 
to get round the church and run for a place nobody else 
was likely to know. This was a cliff cavity on the side of 
Ben Venue that could be reached by a slope. None of 
the city people was likely to know about it, and those who 
did know, would recognise danger rather than safety in its 
loneliness. We had scarcely got to it when the aeroplanes 
began to spread over the hillside. 

Here let me put in a note. Though they called me a 


154 T HE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

freak, I am only a woman, and if I had the pen of Zola, 

I would not attempt to describe the awful sights that 
now began. How one got through is a miracle and a 
mystery. I and my maid, Janet, were two Scotch women¬ 
folk who had never seen more bloodshed than that of a cut 
finger, and suddenly we were pitch-forked into the worst 
horrors of war. I was near fainting, but if I gave way it 
was certain that the lass Janet would do so as well, and the 
thought of my baby being tossed up on a bayonet point, a 
vision that flashed into my mind, so roused the de’il in me 
that I gripped the bairn, gave Janet a push that sent her 
stottering, and rushed for shelter. It proved one of the very 
best. From the bottom it looked as if some hill-god had 
been pouring stones down from the top of the cleft, as 
grains pass down a mill-hopper, and suddenly cried c< Stop !” 
and they stopped. From the top there was nothing to be 
seen but a lump of jagged rock sticking out. 

The aeroplanes were beginning to come over and 
the guns were firing. It was getting on to dusk by now, 
and from our high position we could see flames rising and 
hear the guns and other sounds of war. What had happened 
I did not know, and it was not the question that mastered 
me. The safety of my child having been secured, anxiety 
for my husband grew beyond all bounds. He had promised 
to follow immediately if his professional services were not 
demanded. As I stood at the opening of our refuge won¬ 
dering what it was possible to do, I was mechanically counting 
the fires that began to rise from the towns and villages, and 
tracing the railway lines by them. I thought the little 
fires would be those of the small stations, and the tremendous 
conflagrations those of the large towns. They could not 
be due to a revolution as the wildest anarchist would not 
set fire to his own dwelling or the dwellings of his friends, 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 155 

whereas there seemed as many blazes as there are stars in 
the sky. The biggest conflagration I put down as being 
at Glasgow. It was but too easy to know that when a 
passenger train was met it was destroyed, since from those 
not far away a shrieking and screaming arose that left no 
doubt about what was being done. 

You, who read this in years to come, may have gone 
back to the comfort in which we used to live, and it will be 
hard for you to realise that we were almost at once faced with 
hunger. When Janet, the baby, and I first scrambled 
into our rock shelter we were too frightened to think of 
meat. It was only hiding we thought of, but as the hours 
went by and it grew colder and colder, we began to feel 
that we could not stand it without something to eat or 
drink. Janet shivered every time she looked at the bare, 
wet rocks, with cold water soaking over the edges and 
oozing out of every crack. We never had meant to stop 
there any length of time, but just had run to it as frightened 
rabbits run into their burrows. So we plotted that when 
night came on and the moon rose, we would spy out the 
land and try to beg or pick up something to eat, not having 
yet realised what had happened. Janet reminded me of a 
decent old herd, whose cot we reckoned to be not more 
than a mile off. I fell in with the notion, and off we started, 
not for a moment thinking anybody would injure an innocent 
shepherd or touch his belongings. 

It was yet to be learned what a war of extermination 
meant. When we came near the place where there used 
to be a low-walled cottage, roofed with thatch, very thick 
and overgrown with moss, nothing but a heap of rubbish 
could be seen. “ They’ve dung it doon,” exclaimed Janet, 
££ but sakes, ma’am, what’s that ? ” 

Her finger trembled as it pointed to a form emerging 


156 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

from the gorse bushes, and she shuddered when it uttered 
a loud, dreary moan. She was Highland, and Highlanders 
are proverbially superstitious. To me, not quite so fearful, 
it was a glad sight and a glad sound. Anxiety about my 
own dear little brat had quickened my wit. 

tc It’s the cow come home to be milked,” I exclaimed. 
44 The dumb animal can’t understand what’s happened, 
and she is lowing for someone to relieve her of her milk. 
Run up to the place and see if they have left a pail or a 
pan into which to milk her.” 

Janet was in such fear and excitement that imagination 
ran away with her reason. “ Oh, mistress, gang na near it,” 
she implored, “ that’s not a real cow, but only its ghaist. 
She’ll come here and moo every moonlight night till they 
give her master Christian burial.” 

“ Take the wean,” I said impatiently, and though her 
crying made him cry, I marched up to Mally, as I heard 
the shepherd when he was alive call his cow, and picking 
up an iron pot, which old country people called a yetling, 
I was soon straining the milk into it, humming as I did so, 
an old ballad my mother taught me. 

Until that moment nobody, myself least of all, dreamed 
of my having any ability as an actress. I was really sick 
with horror, for while petting and encouraging the cow, 
I had caught sight of her master’s long, grey beard in a 
patch of gorse, and it had no body to it. To speak the 
truth, at that moment a selfish love for myself and my child 
made me determine that I would do nothing to unnerve 
the slip of a girl who might be the only companion left, 
so I laughed and told her that no ghostly milk could hiss 
like this, as it rained into the old kail pot, and my voice 
rang clear and true as I sang : 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 157 

Bonny Mary to the yow buchts, has gan 
To milk her daddy’s yows. 

And aye she sang, her bonnie voice rang, 

Right over the tops of the knowes, knowes, 

Right over the tops of the knowes. 

I took no thought of the danger of being heard, and 
fortunately at night-fall no one was left in that wild deso¬ 
lation. I sang the second verse as I never sang it before, 
nor ever will again : 

There were a troop of gentlemen, 

Came merrily riding by, 

And one of them to the yow bucht has gan 
To see Mary milking her yows, yows, 

To see Mary, Mary milking her yows. 

Every nerve was strained, but when the crisis comes 
the strength is given to meet it. My very sight was 
quickened by excitement, and I picked out something 
that revealed the comparatively uninjured part of the 
cottage. Then I divined that the house must have been 
set on fire in the belief that the thatch was inflammable 
and would complete the work of destruction, whereas it 
was so sodden and old that it would have taken the heat of 
a furnace to burn it into ashes. In point of fact, my eye 
had fallen on a corner of the old man’s kist three parts 
covered with the fallen thatch. According to custom, 
he kept in this his store of oatmeal. As I milked, this guess 
passed through my mind quicker than it takes to tell, and 
I guessed aright. We carried away not only a potful of 
milk, but a good supply of meal for making porridge. 

In this way the difficulty of finding means of subsistence 


158 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

were overcome, but my heart was wae with anxiety about my 
husband. That was not lessened by the noise of shooting 
that began every morning at dawn in the neighbourhood of 
Aberfoyle railway station. You may be sure I got up early, 
so early that I saw the aeroplanes bringing shooters from 
some camp not far off. It was plain to me that men and 
women in little companies were taking this way to the 
safety of the Highlands and that they were trapped and 
shot on their arrival. Horrible it was to go near, but love 
of my husband made me face it, and I slouched and waited 
in the bush and bield hoping and fearing yet always managing 
to obtain a look at any face like his even if it were that of 
a dead man. 


XVI 

Mrs. Turnbull’s narrative continued, her long vigil 

AND FINAL DISCOVERY OF HER HUSBAND 

J ANET was kept in ignorance of my experience, 
but the memory nearly drove me mad on those 
nights and early mornings when I hung about Aberfoyle 
and witnessed the machine-like way in which every fugitive 
from Glasgow who came by the highroad or the railway- 
track was shot. As soon as daylight came, aeroplanes 
began their work of hunting for such as were still on the 
way or had turned back. Thus, the chances were all 
against my husband escaping. No force of will could keep 
me from dreaming during my snatches of sleep and 
imagining when awake, that I had seen his head in the 
gorse. 

My husband had promised to start as early as he could. 
It made me feel faint to remember his promise, yet I would 
not give up hope. Next evening, having heard nothing, 
I stole out and dusk saw me concealed waiting. Presently 
there arrived a number of men and women and children 
who had evidently fled from Glasgow and tried to get to the 
hills on foot. They were one and all shot down, and those 
who did it rushed forward to kill such as had only been 
wounded and strip and murder them. It might have 
been expected that I, being little more than a girl, and 
i59 


160 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


tender-hearted at that, should have turned sick, swooned, 
burst into tears, or in some other way given expression to 
my horror. It did not happen that way. My great anxiety 
about my husband drove out every other feeling and 
I remained cold and collected as if looking at a stage play. 
At the same time the instinctive cunning of a wild beast 
awoke in me and I dropped to the ground and crawled to 
deeper cover where I would be better hid and still have 
a good look out on the railway line. I waited patiently 
as far as my body was concerned, but with an impatience 
of mind that seemed to burn me. I longed to turn over 
these dead men and make sure that my man was not among 
them. It was that and nothing heroic that made me edge 
in among the brambles, then sit without a movement 
waiting for the murderers to go away. 

It seemed ages, but could not have been an hour till 
all was over. The soldiers rushed out of their conceal¬ 
ment, stripped the slain of what seemed valuable in their 
eyes, thrust knives and daggers into any part of their clothes 
where articles of value might be concealed, emptied their 
pockets and then returned. At a word of command they 
lined up, divided into halves, and marching out into the 
open, took possession of two aeroplanes and went off on a 
new errand as could be seen by their zig-zag course along 
the railways and the roads. Now was my chance ! Putting 
all my womanish terrors and superstitions on one side, I 
crept to the bodies warily, thinking if only one soldier was 
left he could use his gun. My heart did not lighten till 
I had looked at the last dead face. 

This was repeated for three days on end without result. 
Had the odds not been so heavy against his escape from 
Glasgow I might have felt less dowie, but every morning 
when I finished the dreary search, it was only thinking 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 161 


what might happen to Janet and the bairn that kept me 
from giving way to despair. Till the worst came to the 
worst I made up my mind that tears would not wet my 
cheek and a cry would not come from my mouth. Over 
and over again I had to stifle the beginning of one or the 
other. Hope was at its lowest ebb. Sometimes I tried 
to think that one more wary than the others had perceived 
the danger soon enough to turn back to warn those coming 
on, but that would not stand thinking about. The firing 
must have been like death, that bourne from which no 
traveller returns. 

I was mumbling and repeating that sad phrase to 
myself in the grey dawn of a winter morning, a cold grisly 
morning that made me shiver as I crouched among the 
withered branches, while down below were men whom Pd 
got to think of as fiends, each in a heavy overcoat and with 
a rifle on his shoulder—a sight that made me sick to look 
at. My watching and waiting seemed of no use, and, as 
always happened on such mornings when I knew that the 
same dreadful killing would be repeated, I said to myself 
that if nothing occurred this morning I would give all 
my attention to saving the baby, for my man must be 
lost. Though sunk in this reflection, my eye was kept 
on the line along which I had already seen so many parties 
come confidently, and believing the worst was past. It 
was to me the end of that journey and all journeys. There 
they came, just like the others: one, two, three, I counted 
till I had numbered fifteen all looking brisk and brave 
when they had got together, but my heart fluttered within 
me like the wings of a bird when I saw at a glance one 
whom I immediately recognised by his walk to be my own 
dear husband looking very thin and tired in the growing 
light. Was he to go down as the rest had done ? 


162 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


Some folk pretend that they can communicate their 
thoughts from mind to mind without speaking or writing, 
and at that moment I would have given the head on my 
shoulders for such a gift. If mental concentration could have 
done it, I must have succeeded, but he had only his own wit 
to guide him. The first sense of relief came when, instead of 
following the track to the station as the others did, he 
took the footroad by the burn, crossed the Menteith Road 
and got into the plantation. All this was visible to me 
and not to the murderers, because I was at the top of the 
crag and they were at the bottom. My heart nearly went 
out of me when I realised that if he followed the path which 
led into Aberfoyle he would go straight to destruction 
because they were actually on that footroad. Forgetting 
everything else, I had started to rush down to warn him, 
though that would have meant the death of us both, but 
luckily I had only got a yard or two when I noticed that 
he was coming up and was evidently making for a track 
that led to the farmhouse, but avoided the village. Before 
getting half-way up he had to sit down to rest, as he was 
evidently weak from want of sleep and food. Had he 
known what was going to happen, he could not have picked 
out a better place for seeing it. When I got to him the 
tragedy had been enacted and had proved too much for him, 
so that he had fallen into a kind of dream or stupor. His 
eyes especially frightened me; they were wide open and 
fixed in a stare like eyes in an image. 

How I got him back I hardly remember though I 
can never forget the happiness. You, who read, will 
forgive me the expression so out of keeping with the misery 
that was flowing over Scotland if you think of the woe¬ 
begone, hopeless outlook that had been mine till I found 
him. What I do remember is that I crooned two lines 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 163 

of a sad old ballad that came into my head as I helped 
him along : 

I took his body on my back, 

And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat. 

The lady had lost her knight and I had saved mine, 
but it was not long before I found myself envying her luck. 
Yet I have no doubt that she would have envied us. After 
such a parting with its terror lest we should never come 
together again, it came natural to be wildly happy, and 
I mind my husband coming to himself and saying : “ So it 
is really you, my little wife. I was afraid it would turn out 
a dream and that I would let the dream fall and break as it 
has always done. The luck’s changed. You’ll see things 
are not quite so bad as they look. The British Empire’s too 
big a thing to be blown to bits at one stroke. Probably 
we on the west coast have had the first and hardest knock, 
but I am all for backing white to win in the end against 
any one colour or all the other colours put together.” 

He rallied in spirit but was terribly weak, and it was a 
hard business getting him to our wild home, but that was 
a labour easily forgotten. Pleasure and excitement were 
keeping him up. He made nothing of his sufferings when 
1 pleaded that he should get to sleep. 

He said : <c I thought you would have liked to go on 
talking for a week.” 

He did not accept the suggestion when it was repeated, 
but the third time he could scarcely keep his eyes open. 
So I got him into his bed of dry bracken and he was asleep 
before I could put my shawl on him. 

His long sleep proved a good medicine; it was un¬ 
troubled by a dream or memory. At his waking, one of 


164 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

the old holiday smiles lightened up his face just as it used 
to in the old days when we stole off to the Highlands and 
forgot paved streets among the heather. Not for hours 
did either of us allude to the dule and woe that had fallen 
on the land. We would have been content to bury it in 
oblivion, but no such easy escape was foredoomed. 

We recognised that so far our escape had been due to 
no planning or cleverness, but only to instinct and accident. 
To live through the winter on this bare mountain-side 
was impossible ; and it appeared equally so to make an 
escape through a country occupied by a savage foe. My 
bodeful feeling was that if Tommy had proposed that we 
should die at this happy moment, I would have consented, 
but instead he said : “ Lift up your heart,” and I meekly 
answered : <c Let us lift them up to the Lord.” 

Three happy days in spite of danger, and on the fourth 
began a new set of anxieties. Tommy and I had risen 
before the dawn to go on the prowl. At daybreak one 
could look around in safety. Nobody stayed on the hills 
all night. It was too cold and uncomfortable, and should 
a thick fog come, it was dangerous even for a native to 
move about. Our object in rising early was to seize the 
only safe moment to gather what food might be picked 
up in the wrecked hamlets, and to discern if a better shelter 
could be found than the wind-swept cleft. 

In spite of my own forebodings, I was glad to find 
that my husband’s courage and high spirits were coming 
back and to hear his “ Cheer up, little woman. Great 
Britain is a lot to swallow at one mouthful. The bulk of the 
soldiers are in England. If it be at all feasible, we should 
edge our way south. A stand will have to be made some¬ 
where. We shall go on tramp and pick up our living as 
Gipsies do.” 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 165 

I did my best to reply in the same vein, half inspired 
by his confidence and half because I was pleased to find 
that his spirit and resolution instead of being destroyed, 
had risen above his misfortune. We were making for a 
ruined home observed the day before, on the chance that 
some provisions might be left in it. We exchanged chaff 
and pleasantries in the old way as we threaded our way 
through the heather in the direction of the road to Port 
of Menteith. 

Simultaneously we stopped to listen. “ A car! ” I 
exclaimed. <c More like a char-a-banc,” he asserted, and 
we climbed the high bank to see. By the time we got high 
enough, it had come round a distant corner and was at 
top speed racing in our direction. Hurriedly a load of 
children was discharged, each already furnished with two 
bags. A man of a thin, but soldierly figure, marshalled 
them in order, and in not more than three minutes they 
were walking smartly off to a wooded and broken bit of 
country, to be followed by another and another batch, 
till I lost count of the number. As soon as it was empty, 
the vehicle turned and dashed away, to be quickly followed 
by others. “ Boy Scouts,” exclaimed my husband. te No,” 
I replied in a tone that refused to be cheerful, iC there is 
something about all this that fills me with fear. The 
children look as if packed for a journey, a large bag for 
clothes and a small one for food. I hope they are not 
turning them out in the wild as a last and desperate attempt 
to save them.” 

My forebodings turned out to be justified. We went 
down and no one paid attention to our presence. They 
were so intent on getting the children away, that the few 
who gave a hurried answer to our questions took us for 
an anxious pair whose offspring were among the fugitives. 

M 


166 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


It being broad daylight now I tugged at my husband’s 
arm, but he was too horrified and entranced to move till 
I reminded him that we had a nursling of our own to save ; 
then he started back with long steps that kept me running. 
He would indeed have rushed headlong in a direct line 
had I not forced him to take advantage of every gorge 
and belt of trees. Ever my eye kept turning back on the 
Menteith Road, for having put to every one likely to answer 
the question : ‘ 1 Where do you come from ? ” the answers 
had been Falkirk, Bridge of Allan, Alloa, Dollar, Tillicoultry 
and other places in the neighbourhood of the Ochils, where 
a children’s camp had been hurriedly formed. The Niggers, 
as everybody called the enemy, had, for reasons not known 
except to themselves, missed this district of small manu¬ 
facturing towns. A few had escaped from Edinburgh and 
Glasgow, but they brought terrible stories, and there was 
only too good reason for dreading the worst from an enemy, 
who, according to rumour, aimed at nothing less than the 
extermination of the white races. Most of the fugitives 
after a few hurried words rushed on in hope of reaching the 
wilder country of the Grampians. 

What we should do was the immediate and most 
difficult question. I had no suggestion and could only 
finger the revolver always carried in my pocket as the final 
emergency exit. 

My husband did not lose heart so easily. <e I’m thinking 
they’ll not run up the steep sides of Venue to seek martyrs,” 
he said to me, and to those in charge of the children he 
said : iC They are guided by their aeroplanes, and if the 
young folk keep to the woods and coverts, scatter under 
the firs and spruce, it’s their only chance.” 

They stayed to hear no more, but fled to the woods. 

“ Some are sure to escape,” he remarked. “ As for 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 167 

us, we must put all our stakes on one card. They might 
look for a fox or a badger up there, but hardly for a human 
being.” With that we made what haste we could back to 
our den. 

It was the most miserable day of my life, physically 
and mentally. Without fire and without protection from 
the moist, raw atmosphere, we crouched for hours in a 
corner, trying not to hear the reports of the firing and 
the cries which the wind brought distinctly, though faintly, 
to our ears. My mind rocked between terror and pity till 
I thought I would go mad. At every report that sounded 
nearer than the others, my ears seemed to catch the shriek 
or wail of the victims, and my eye to see dark shapes chasing 
little white children. During all that terrible day we 
scarcely exchanged words. My husband once or twice 
pressed my hands in reassurance that he would be with me 
to the end, and I guessed from his pale, resolute face that 
if the worst came to the worst he would save me from 
shame and outrage. Janet, as if her capacity for terror 
had been exhausted, played with the baby self-possessed 
and apparently heedless of what was going on outside. 


XVII 


Mrs. Turnbull’s story continued. How she discovered 

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNED SPY AND TRAITOR. HlS 
STORY AND FATE 

J UST before sunset the gun reports became fewer, 
and at last died down altogether. My nature has 
always been an active one, and despite the remonstrance 
of my husband, I made ready to go down and spy out the 
land. He talked of danger and possible surprise, but I 
brushed that aside. 

<c Nobody could descend from the top without a ladder,” 
I said, “ and there is only one way up, so that anyone to 
reach you must pass me.” 

He made no further resistance, and on noiseless feet 
and with revolver in pocket, I started downward creeping 
close to the great rock which rose like a wall from the little 
path. It was a relief for me to do anything instead of 
sitting idle while my imagination was gathering material 
to furnish nightmares for the rest of my life. It would 
be hard to say how often in my dreams I have seen black 
troopers hunting on the moor, and sometimes children were 
flying before them, but more often a dishevelled figure, 
which had been Civilisation. 

This melancholy train of thought was, however, swept 
temporarily out of my mind because a party of three began 
168 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 169 

to approach the bottom of the path where I stood, and 
I withdrew as deeply into the shadow of the wall as was 
possible, to observe them more carefully before I gave 
the alarm. When danger took the very definite form of 
three individuals advancing towards our refuge, I felt 
as if the devils of misery and terror had suddenly been 
cast out of me. Once again I was myself. Who were they 
and what were they doing ? In regard to one, at least, 
there was no room for doubt. He was a runner on foot 
who carried a small bag or parcel which, at the direction 
of one of the others, he laid on a large boulder that ad¬ 
joined the path. Now this showed me that here was one 
familiar with the ground. On three sides of that boulder 
the gorse was cropped by deer and sheep on the top, and 
rabbits and hares lower down. It was exactly the sort of 
corner, sheltered and out of doors, that I would have selected 
for a sleeping place. The wind that was moaning about 
the crags would not reach anyone there, as the gorse was 
not only dense, but covered a considerable extent of ground. 

The other two men, who were on horseback, dis¬ 
mounted and fastened their horses to the thick stems of 
the whin-bushes. 

I was not close enough to make out their features 
in the growing dusk, but the moment they were on foot 
the swagger of the Glasgow Medical School was as plain 
to me as the nose on your face. As my father had held a 
Medical Chair in the University for fifteen years and my 
husband was a doctor, not only was it familiar, but in the 
graceless years of girlhood I, and a few equally giddy com¬ 
panions, used to imitate and burlesque it. At that time 
its chief features were that the head was held a little forward, 
the shoulders, even those in the rugger team, made to 
look drawn in and close, the left leg was slightly trailed, 


170 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

and the stick, carried always in a gloved hand, was held 
at an exact angle. We swimming, hockey-playing, wildly 
natural, uncorseted females used to laugh no end at the 
pains which the most athletic young medicals took to make 
themselves look round-shouldered and deformed. 

My curiosity was sharpened even in that moment of 
alarm by seeing these young men of a most pronounced 
swagger which was quite different from that of Oxford or 
Cambridge, of Eton or Piccadilly. I remembered too 
that it was a swagger hardly discernible in students who set 
their eyes on a higher distinction than superficial mannerisms 
and was entirely ignored by those who swotted by day and 
night for high academical honour. Whereas, those of no 
scholastic distinction and of a reputation that was seldom 
unblemished, cultivated the swagger as diligently as they 
studied the cut of their trousers and the colour of their 
socks and neckties. 

Observations of this sort had by us girls been tossed 
to one another in a spirit of fun, banter and irony not so 
long ago, though now it seemed in some far distant age, 
but on this occasion they came like sparks from a whirling 
brain. There was not a medical student at the time when 
men of their age were at college whom I had not seen, and 
of a vast number I remembered the appearance. It was 
that made me climb as softly as a mouse on the steep 
ledge bounding the scarcely noticeable track up the mountain. 
Tunnels had been made under the gorse by sheep which were 
attracted by food and shelter. Along them I crept slowly 
and silently, risking much to see and hear the men. At 
last only a few feet separated us, and as I drew near, one 
of them turned on the light of an electric torch. What 
his purpose was, there was nothing to tell. From what 
took place afterwards it may have been a precaution against 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 171 

being assailed in the dark by his companions. The actual 
result was to place the men in a lighted circle surrounded 
by walls of darkness, a situation that suited most admirably 
the spectator and eavesdropper. 

It happened that I had seen them once, but it was an 
occasion which I could not help remembering—a New 
Year’s Eve ball given by the Lord Provost. Although not 
a university function, invitations had been sent to all 
students, and these two had entered the ballroom and 
secured partners for the sixth dance. One was a 
pale-faced Indian student, and the other a Glas¬ 
wegian named Macgregor. Only a fortnight previously 
they had emerged from a murder trial that had aroused 
great interest even at a time when people were satiated 
by newspaper reports of sensational cases. The murder 
was that of a young woman in circumstances that had 
excited the greatest pity for her. Owing, it was said, 
to a clever advocate and a sentimental judge, they had 
got off with a verdict of <c not proven.” This verdict means 
that the jury feel instinctively that the accused is guilty, 
but that the evidence is not so clear and direct as to pre¬ 
clude the idea of innocence. On this occasion every man, 
woman and child in Glasgow was convinced that the two 
men, in the words of a famous judge : “ Wadna be the waur 
o’ a hangin’.” 

The public gave a clear and decided expression of their 
opinion in the ballroom. Hardly had the dance begun 
than it became known to every one within the walls that 
the two notorieties had not only gained admission, but 
were actually dancing with two girls respectably connected, 
but about whom least said soonest mended. Men and 
women, the old and the young, soon knew what had hap¬ 
pened. Lady Arthur, the Provost’s wife, who was dancing 


172 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

with one of the Campbells of Argyll, abruptly stopped. 
Every other couple too became glued to the ground. It 
was an embarrassing moment for everybody except the 
Lord Provost. He gave his wife a look at which she and 
her partner resumed dancing and the guests followed her 
example, all but the two unbidden guests and their partners. 
They found themselves engaged in quiet conversation 
with an immaculately dressed gentleman who smiled benig- 
nantly as he showed them his visiting card. He was the 
Head of the Highland Police Force. 

As quickly as a dream flits across the mind of a sleeper 
the scene came back to my recollection, and also the rumour 
that shortly afterwards the two had left the country and 
gone abroad. My conclusion that they had turned traitor 
tallied only too well with the perfect knowledge of the 
environs of Glasgow shown by the invaders. I was indeed 
thankful for having come, and conceived a hope that they 
would let out something that might be of help to us. 

It is unfortunate from this point that they turned 
out to be no longer confederates. Macgregor, a big, 
raw-boned Scot with a sullen but cunning face, appeared 
to be afraid and suspicious of his companion. He could 
not conceal his uneasiness though he summoned up enough 

courage to ask why he had been brought out to this- 

(the adjective may be guessed) place on a cold, winter 
night. He supposed that he being out of favour and the 
latter in, he did it to show his authority. 

The Indian looked very much more at his ease. He 
wore the uniform of a superior officer, while he who had 
once been his partner in crime wore that of a sub-lieutenant, 
a sign, I guessed, that he had never been promoted. He 
replied with perfect calm in a dulcet purring voice that 
suggested deceit in every syllable. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 173 

ci Friend Mac,” he said in the slightly Indian accent 
which had not been wholly eliminated by Scottish university 
life and the intercourse it leads to. He spoke slowly, as if 
cuddling his words before he let them go, and his hesita¬ 
tions were put in with the scrupulous care of an artist or a 
surgeon. <c Suspicion is not gentlemanly, especially sus¬ 
picion of your best friend. Haven’t I always been your best 
friend ? Did I not get you a commission ? Did I not arrange 
the wages for this last transaction, and have I not stuck 
out for the English gold you demanded in payment ? Surely 
you guess why it is to be handed over to you in this solitary 
spot ? My people belong to a sun-steeped land and are, 
let us call it, naturally sunny and soft in temperament, but 
after their strange shooting, they have a disease not unknown 
to you, my friend. Do not forget I’ve seen you with blood 
fever. Gold is yellow and blood is red. You would not 
have had them pay you in yellow English gold, and then 
take it back in red blood. If you wish that, let us go back 
and you will be honestly paid.” 

He took up the parcel or bag. I could not exactly 
make out which it was, and, incidentally flashed the brilliant 
light on his companion’s face. It was as white as milk, 
yet he made a strong effort to pull himself together and 
answer coolly. 

“ You would be a great fighter,” he said, “ if you could 
stab with your knife as well as you can stab with your 
tongue. Leave off fingering that gun in your pocket and 
hand over the tin. It doesn’t look as if I had a dog’s chance 
left, but if I’ve got to go, it will be your turn first.” 

The Indian hastily withdrew his hand from the revolver 
in his pocket and obviously quailed before the ready and 
desperate Scot. 

“ I did not come here to injure you,” and it seemed to 


174 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

me there was a little quaver, real or pretended, in his voice, 
“ but to help you. Our commander is honourable according 
to the white standard. He ordered me to pay you the 
price and see to it that you are not killed and robbed. Do 
not take out your gun; it would only bring the sportsmen 
over here—the camp is not a quarter of an hour’s gallop 
away. I am the only friend you have left. You know the 
wave of religion, which you name fanaticism, that has 
swept over the army since our victories. It has made 
them look upon the slaughter of a white as a key to Paradise. 
Our commander is a soldier who wants to keep faith with 
those who have joined his enterprise. He will protect 
you as long as he can, but advises you to look out for some 
other service, if possible with one of the allied countries 
not connected with the British Empire.” 

The Scot gathered the deadly meaning of this message. 
It was obvious from the sudden despair of his expression. 
What he said gave no indication of anything except his 
recognition that his fate was sealed. “How long ? ” was 
all he asked. 

“ Oh, you may consider yourself safe for a week,” replied 
the Indian. “ Bring my horse and hold my stirrup, will 
you.” 

As he rode off, a gleam of his white teeth showed that 
it was no small satisfaction to have cowed and frightened 
his formidable confederate. 

As soon as the Indian renegade had trotted out of 
sight and almost out of hearing, only the patter of his 
horse’s feet being audible, it seemed as if the Scot was 
about to relieve his mind by a prolonged curse. He shook 
a clenched fist in the direction he had gone and exclaimed 
in a voice half suffocated with hatred : “ The damned 
swine! ” Then he stopped as if arrested by a realisation 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 175 

of his own danger. <£ It is time to be shifting,” he muttered. 
<£ I’ve felt it in the air.” He kept on saying things to himself 
till he got on horseback, but I was unable to catch more 
than a word or two. 

There was no time to lose. I ran up the path like 
a hare and told my husband and Janet what I had heard. 
They realised the situation at once—a camp of murdering 
fanatics close at hand, mad with spilling the blood of 
children, the cynics who spoke of massacre as <c shooting the 
coverts.” Where would we be if they found us ? How to 
get away, how to avoid falling into their hands if we ventured 
out in the darkness in country that we scarcely knew by 
daylight ? These were dreadful problems that made us envy 
the friends and relations who lay dead among the ruins 
of Glasgow, and for ever safe from the rage of the pursuer 
and the torture of their own thoughts. 


XVIII 

The story of Dr. Turnbull’s wife concluded. Janet 

THE MAID LEADS THEM TO A HIDING-PLACE IN THE WILD 
OCHILS 

was a dark, bad moment, and to our surprise, it 
-*• was the maid, Janet, who let a little pinhole of light 
and hope fall on it. She had gone through some mental 
change since the first day when her terror was so great as 
to make me fear for her sanity. She may have got used to 
the new conditions or developed a strength of mind hitherto 
latent. At any rate, she proved herself the most self- 
possessed of the party. Her own explanation was that after 
she saw “ the maister ” come away safe and sound from 
Glasgow, she could not believe that our time had come yet. 

“ I’ll wager,” she said, “ the neygars would ne’er find 
out Aunt Tibbie’s hidy hole. You may look and look 
for it and see naething. Some say it used to be a cow byre, 
and some that it was a hemel, that’s a field shelter for nowt 
or sheep. Ony way, it’s roofed wi’ green divots and it’s 
built like what you call a lean-to, only it doesn’t lean to 
a wall but to the grund and a big rock, and slants down 
to the grass.” 

Janet was starting off to give particulars of no great 
importance just at the moment, but my husband broke 
in with a few pointed questions. Then we learnt that 

176 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 177 

Janet at one time lived with her aunt in this primitive 
dwelling. It was a solitary place on the moor rising beyond 
Alva on the Ochil Hills. When leaving she had travelled by 
the road, having got a lift from the distillery man at Alva, 
who was delivering kegs of whisky at various inns between 
Alva and Aberfoyle. She remembered inns at which they 
stopped. They did not enter the town of Stirling, but 
served a hotel a mile out of it, two inns at Bridge-of-Allan, 
one at the Port of Menteith, where the landlady made her 
a cup of tea, and one at Doune. There was a good road 
all the way. It would be a long walk, she did not know how 
many miles, but not impossible. 

It looked like the straw a drowning swimmer will 
clutch at, but the situation was so desperate that anything 
was better than lying here like the doomed awaiting exe¬ 
cution. While my husband and I were talking it over, Janet 
slipped out and returned with a supply of milk. Her eyes 
were running with tears which drew alarmed questions 
from us. 44 Oh, it’s nothing, ma’am,” she said , 66 just Mally. 
I’ve learned to like the cow, and now we’re to leave her 
to the mercy o’ thae cut-throats.” 

We felt almost as sad as she did about the poor beast, 
but the danger was too pressing for more than a brief word 
of regret. Filling three of the bottles that had been picked 
up in our wanderings, with milk, we made haste to depart 
from a shelter that was no longer safe. 

For half an hour of the deepest anxiety we struggled 
and stumbled across the moorland. We knew the direction 
in which the road lay and were able to keep a fairly straight 
line. The threat of snow had passed for the time being, 
and a frost set in which was to our advantage, as we realised 
when ice began to crunch under our feet, so that instead 
of having at places to wade through rivers of mud, we had 


178 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

hard ground till we came to an unhedged mountain- 
track that led down to the main road. A dangerous 
stage of the journey had been accomplished without 
mishap. 

Our first alarm occurred after about a quarter of a 
mile on the highway had been covered, when we heard the 
sounds made by the hoofs of a galloping horse which became 
louder as the animal and its rider emerged from the grassy 
moor and began to hurry along the hard surface of the 
highway. Was it a pursuer ? We had no time to consider. 
Tom, who was splendid that night, drew us under the 
shadows of a ragged hawthorn hedge where none but a 
searching eye was likely to discover us, and we drew out our 
revolvers. But he who rode past wore the air of a fugitive 
rather than that of a pursuer. At a first glance, I suspected 
who he was, and when he rode away exhibiting the same 
seat on his saddle which I had observed from my place of 
concealment, no doubt remained of the identity either 
of the man or the horse. It surprised us when he pulled 
up within twenty yards of where we were. My husband, 
to whom I had whispered who he was, glided noiselessly 
forward and I followed. 

We saw him stop at a gate on the other side of the road. 
It opened into a clear space in front of a quarry which had 
evidently been used as a dumping ground for motor-cars 
looted in the neighbourhood. They stood there in hundreds 
and there appeared to be no one in charge, although several 
of the cars showed lights as if kept in readiness for any 
urgent necessity. Macgregor seemed by his confident 
manner to know that there would not be any one in charge 
at the moment. At any rate, without hesitation, he jumped 
into one of two cars that stood close together near the 
gate, and without seeing that lights and machinery were 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 179 

in order, he drove out on to the road. He stopped the car 
to release his horse, which, with a cut of his riding switch 
he sent along the road at racing pace. Almost as soon as 
he did so, my husband had jumped into the other car, 
had it on the road and got us all in. He was not usually 
so prompt in action, but he thought there must be some¬ 
body in charge, and if so, he might return at any moment. 
We followed the other car till before coming to Stirling, 
it took the road to Alloa, and we that to Alva which we 
reached without any mishap. 

My husband watched the road carefully in case it 
should have been rendered impassable, but even when 
it ran through a village street it was clear of obstacles. 

“ The enemy must have used the road or intended to 
use it,” he concluded, after having stopped the car in the 
middle of a ruined village and stepped out to see if any 
stones or other debris blocked the way. There was nothing, 
but on each side bits of masonry and planks of wood were 
embanked showing clearly that a way had been cleared 
after the houses had been blown up. He thought it likely 
that the object of the enemy had been to paralyse the 
natives by the destruction of the railways, telegraph wires 
and wireless stations and keep the roads clear for their own 
transport. 

If we live we shall know the facts some day,” he re¬ 
marked. “ The enterprise has been planned by a master 
hand and carried out with an indifference to human suffering 
which suggests that it comes from the Far East. The aim 
evidently is not only the conquest, but the total annihilation 
of the old country.” 

At Alva we stopped, as Janet said there was no motor 
road up the glen and her aunt lived beyond the edge of 
it. Tom was puzzled what to do with the car. 


i8o THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


ct Let those folk steal it,” said Janet, whose quick eye 
had caught sight of the figures of four or five wild-looking 
men who evidently had been searching for what they could 
pick up in the ruins. They were too much absorbed in 
the endeavour to get some large object out of its burial 
place or hiding to notice the small light of the car, and 
we took care that they could not possibly see its 
passengers. A frantic cheer broke from them as they 
unearthed a case of bottles, and knocking off the neck 
by a neat tap on a stone, they each raised a bottle to 
his mouth. 

“ Distillery workers—that’s him used to drive the 
motor—cut across to the gate,” said Janet in such haste 
that you would have thought her trying to crowd all the 
words into one mouthful. When we had crossed into a 
grass field she turned on the headlight and followed as 
quickly as a fawn after a hind. She seemed, however, to 
have eyes in the back of her head, for she whispered to 
us to “ wait a bit.” 

The men had stopped in the middle of their drinking 
and with crooked elbows and upraised bottles looked more 
like stone busts than men. Where had that brilliant light 
dropped from ? Evidently the first instinct of many of 
them was to make a run for it, but potations of strong drink, 
which probably had been numerous, gave courage even to 
the coward. He who according to Janet drove the motor 
lorry of the distillery advanced cautiously to survey the 
phenomenon, saw that the car was unmistakably empty, 
door open, no place where a fox could be concealed. He 
went near and ultimately jumped in and drove up to his 
companions. 

They were too afraid or too astonished to cheer, but 
they did not hesitate. Within a minute or two they and 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 181 


their bags and the case of spirits were all squeezed into 
the car and they drove away at great speed. 

All of us smiled and almost came near laughing. It 
was the only incident of that awful day that conveyed even 
a remote sense of amusement. With a sense of relief we 
faced the dark hills, not indeed ignoring that the chances 
were in favour of disappointment at the end, and that it 
might be necessary to spend the night on this high exposed 
moorland, but with a little of the confidence engendered 
in a gambler by the fact that luck has been on his side. It 
was a last throw of the dice, but there was nothing to do 
but chance it. 

Janet, carrying my little boy, had started vigorously 
as if the air of the Ochils had given her a new energy. When 
my husband tried to relieve her of the burden she answered 
that many a time she had carried heavier weights up and 
down this steep path. The journey was toilsome, but 
it brought us at last to the dwelling of her aunt. Had Janet 
not been there we might have spent the night in seeking 
it. A stream running past suggested that it might have 
been originally constructed as a shelter for anglers, but 
there are other explanations of its existence just as possible. 
Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the Ochils 
formed a notorious part of a wild country frequented 
by deer-stealers and other poachers, smugglers who brought 
tobacco and spirits that had never paid revenue, up the 
Forth, and other dubious members of the community who 
were of wandering habits or had reasons for not wishing to 
come into close contact with officers of the law. At all 
events it was about the most primitive piece of architecture 
possible to imagine. A few tree stems placed so as to 
slope from the summit of the rock to the ground, then 
laid with branches and covered over with sods. Dry 


182 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


bracken stuffed bard between two rows of posts sufficed at 
least to keep the wind away at the two ends. In one there 
was an apology for a door through which Janet dived as 
one who knew the way. 

She came back with a sober face. Her aunt was in 
bed very ill. She had £< gotten a gliffi ” ; in other words, 
she had been terrified out of her senses when, not knowing 
what had happened all over the country, she had gone half¬ 
way down to Alva with her donkey and its usual load of 
eggs and butter. Such a yelling and burning broke on 
ear and eye as made her turn and fly in terror. Since then 
she had been afraid to move. Janet, with more tact and 
promptitude than I gave her credit for, had told her aunt 
that she had brought the doctor to see her, and as usual 
with women of her class in the country, no announcement 
could have been more welcome. It was a doctor she had 
been hoping for ever since the great fright had left her 
sick in body and depressed in spirit. 

My husband was at a great disadvantage because he 
had not even the simplest medicaments at hand, but he sat 
on a stool by her primitive bed and was able to suggest 
several things that could be done to comfort her mind and 
cure her bodily ill. His trouble was in vain. Within a day 
or two her frail life flickered out and we buried her down 
by the burnside, where lay many of her progenitors. 

It was not altogether a quiet period. Few of the 
invaders came up the Glen, and none of them appeared to 
imagine that there was any hiding place here as we lay 
very close, and in time we dug out a place in which our 
live-stock could be driven in an emergency. They often 
had caused us anxiety. Aeroplanes came over many times 
and three times we watched a battle in the skies. On two 
occasions there was only one aeroplane on each side; on 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 183 

the third we counted nine, but their battle drifted out of 
sight and we were afraid to venture any distance across the 
moor, so that we never learned whether any of them had 
come down or not. 

Eventually things became very quiet and we even 
began at times to feel a little dull, yet we were glad to 
have no work more exciting than that of attending to the 
cows, the pigs and the poultry. A mild excitement was 
experienced when a creature that had reverted to wild¬ 
ness in wartime returned under the stress of hunger or 
stirred by the memory of domestic comfort. Fowls often 
did so. Otherwise, life dropped into an even routine and 
might have become unbearable if my husband, who loved 
on moonlight nights to go poking among ruined houses, 
had not picked up a number of books very miscellaneous 
in character. Nobody seems to have thought either of des¬ 
troying them or carrying them away. 

At last after about three years of this kind of life, we 
were roused into new hope and activity by a message from 
the south. To my dying day I shall not forget how it 
came. It will be easily understood that we had become 
as watchful and suspicious as weasels. We hurriedly con¬ 
cealed ourselves and our belongings when one day two 
singular looking men came riding up the glen, each on a 
shaggy, long-tailed pony. Who or what they were neither 
I nor my husband could at first make out. We had not 
time to get even to the lean-to shed we called a house, but 
drew back behind some birch trees and high fern so close 
to the path that one could hear the sound of the men’s 
voices though not the exact words at first. Black- 
avised men they were with long hair and beards that 
fell to their chests. They wore outlandish garments 
of drab cloth, a sort of jacket, a Tam o’Shanter hat, 


1B4 THE collapse of homo sapiens 

and undergarments that seemed cut and made to imitate 
kilts. 

“ Disguised,” whispered my husband, feared like, 
££ a trap.” Our noses went close to the ground at the 
thought. As they came nearer, the outlandish men 
stopped their ponies and without getting off began to sing : 
What do you think ? We could hardly believe our ears. 

££ O Willie brew’d a peck o’maut, 

And Rob and Allan cam to see; 

Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, 

Ye wadna found in Christendie. 

££ We are na fou, we’re nae that fou, 

But just a drappie in our e’e ; 

The cock may craw, the day may daw, 

And ay we’ll taste the barley bree.” 

To me their accent appeared to be true Scottish though 
not Glasgow, but my husband remained suspicious even 
after they had gone through every verse of the song and 
roared out the chorus three times. He held my hand 
tight and breathed rather than said : ££ Sh, sh, or we’ll 
never get clear this time.” 

The singers appeared to be disappointed. 

££ No kindly Scot lies here, Jock,” one said to his com¬ 
panion, “ or Robbie’s words would have wakened him from 
the dead.” 

££ Hout Tam,” replied the other, ££ our poor freens have 
cause to be wary, but I got a glimpse of a chuckie, and 
where there’s hens there is sure to be wimmen. If they’re 
here they came from Glasga’, so let’s try them with the 
Forty-second.” 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 185 

4< Wha saw the forty-second ? 

Wha saw them run awa ? 

Wha saw the forty-second 
Marching to the Broomielaw ? 

Some o’ them had shoes and stockings 
Some o’ them had nane ava ; 

Wha saw the forty-second ? 

Wha saw them run awa ? ” 

The ci Forty-second ” was irresistible as it was sung by 
those grave-looking figures. With laughter and tears we 
stood up and acknowledged them. The singer who had 
spoken last turned to his companion, and not abating his 
gravity by a whit, said : “ I knew that would bring them 
oot, Tam.” 

It is beyond me to describe the conversation that 
went on during the next days. All the time I was dizzy 
with excitement and delight. It was the end of a life 
that had become hateful, and the dawn of one full of promise. 
After that there was so much to do in selecting what to 
take and what to leave, and in preparing such food as could 
be carried and such clothes as might be worn that I had not 
a minute to spare. One advantage we had over the southern 
friends who joined later on was that we needed no shoes 
and stockings. There was a very small supply to begin 
with, and so we accustomed ourselves to go barefoot. That 
was a very great help in the journey. As far as we could, 
we also kept to the high ground in the middle of England, 
where the rivers are little and could be forded. I did not 
take down anything in writing during the journey and 
must leave to some other day the task of putting on to 
paper my recollections. 


XIX 

The attempt at revolution in London 

I T was only from an accidental allusion by Dr. Turnbull 
that I came to know that the invasion of England had 
been preceded by a terrible, and in blood, most costly at¬ 
tempt at revolution in London. Over and over again I had 
been surprised in the same way. It was assumed that every 
person of intelligence knew of the most lurid passages in 
English history. Controversies had raged over them, they 
had been recorded in prose, sung in verse. How could 
anyone be ignorant of them ? It was unthinkable that 
an occurrence in London as frightful as any in the German 
War could be unknown to an Englishman. Dr. Turnbull 
was, however, most patient. He told me that in the course 
of three years a revolutionary wave had travelled from 
north to south. It failed because the population of 
Great Britain had not become revolutionary at heart, and 
those born and brought up in an island had not got over 
their prejudice against foreigners. 

So the revolutionary force which started in Aberdeen 
took the best part of three years to get to London. It trav¬ 
elled by Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh, then crossed 
the border to Newcastle, and at intervals appeared at 
Darlington, Leeds, Manchester, York, Hull, Nottingham, 
Northampton, Luton, and finally at London, where it was 
x86 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 187 

suppressed by an explosion at which humanity had not yet 
ceased to shudder. 

On my asking if there had been much writing about it, 
“ A great deal,” he answered. “ You should however read 
it up in the better class magazines of the period, which were 
not run for profit or partizanship, like many of the daily 
and weekly papers, but gave the truth as they knew it.” 

He showed me about a dozen from which I selected 
one to copy. The account had for centre a deadly and 
domineering man of science who would have pawned his 
soul to achieve a discovery and prided himself on being 
above the sentimentality that would avoid the shedding of 
blood merely for its innocence. 

Here is the story as it was written close to the time, and 
obviously by one familiar with contemporary men of mark. 

WHO WAS MR. BINYON ? 

(From a contemporary magazine.) 

Two years after the revolution in London this question 
is being asked as eagerly and as much in vain as it was im¬ 
mediately after the tragical ending of that unhappy move¬ 
ment. Had the Government encouraged instead of de¬ 
nouncing independent investigation, an answer might have 
been found by now. When I was asked to make enquiry 
into the mystery, the difficulties had enormously increased. 
Binyon disappeared so completely that many believed him 
dead, and of his associates some are definitely known to 
have died naturally or been killed by accident or design ; 
but of his fate nothing is known. A feature of the case 
is that his memory is hated by the revolutionaries as bitterly 
as the name of Cromwell is hated by the Irish. At no 
time could the Government have been ignorant of the 


188 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


character ot the rebellion or the individuals who planned it. 

The movement began in Glasgow and was continued 
in Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Nottingham, 
and was to have found its climax in London. The history 
of the attempt made in the great manufacturing towns 
of the provinces was almost the same in each case. Appar¬ 
ently a small number of extremists—adherents of Nihilism 
under one of the numerous forms it assumed in our day— 
miscalculated the extent of the support they could command 
and ignored the average Englishman’s dislike of extreme 
creeds. At any rate the government always had at hand 
a force large enough to quell each rising at its birth. It 
stood like a man at a rat-hole with a stick ready to bludgeon 
the animal as soon as it left its hiding-place. 

Subsequent events proved that the authorities knew 
who were the ringleaders, most of whom were arrested and 
shot. The rising in London assumed far larger proportions; 
but the partizans of the Government contended that forces 
were prepared to deal efficiently and without much blood¬ 
shed with it. 

They argued that the gigantic explosion of the evening 
of June must have been the work of a third party. Was 
that party composed of Mr. Binyon and a handful of con¬ 
federates is the question which I am seeking to answer. 

I was chosen for the task partly because I had some 
acquaintance with the man. Nobody took me seriously 
when I explained how slight it was, and their scepticism may 
be described as natural since it was my introduction that 
made him known to my cousin, Sir James Eliot, who was 
the means by which he came to know Lord Oisel, the 
Minister for War. My introduction to him was purely 
accidental. One evening in my club three men were 
arguing about the distribution of weight in a vehicle so 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 189 

as to secure a maximum of speed with a minimum of energy, 
the question having turned up in relation to a new motor 
carriage of which the inventor had a model with him. 
Looking on was Mr. Binyon, then unknown to any who were 
present. 

He butted in rather rudely. <£ Can’t settle the question 
by arguing. Words no use. Let me test it, got a little 
thing in my pocket.” 

While speaking he had taken from his pocket a tube 
no thicker than a man’s forefinger and set it on a wheeled 
frame with four indicators marked respectively, Time, 
Place, Distance, Energy expended. Working very quickly 
he took some little weights from his pocket and adjusted 
them in the position suggested by one of the disputants. 
Everybody acclaimed the brevity and certainty of the 
tests as he adjusted his instrument in accordance with the 
other opinions expressed, but his only comment was : 
<£ No use wasting breath in talk—a practical test’s the thing.” 

I was not interested so much in the test as in the man. 
He looked what he was, the embodied spirit of science. 
Yet to the ordinary man he possessed no feature out of the 
common. He was short and at first sight rather stodgy- 
looking with a thick neck and broad shoulders, on which his 
head was poised like a stiff piece of sculpture. It was the 
head of a strong man, perhaps of a genius but not of an 
imaginative artistic genius. The hard features and the 
equally hard blue eyes spoke of science rather than art. 
A first and lasting impression made on my mind was that 
of a strong man with many of the less admirable character¬ 
istics that are associated with strength such as concentration, 
aggressiveness, self-absorption exaggerated to the highest 
degree. 

It was evident that the three disputants recognised 


190 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

their master, or it might be more correct to say the amateurs 
recognised a genius. Without heeding their flattery and 
appreciation he turned to me and said abruptly : “ You 
don’t profess to understand a thing like that, you are not 
an engineer ? ” ct Not at all,” I said in answering the 
implied query. <£ You’d have to begin at the A B C if 
you wished to teach me your mystery.” 

c( Well,” he said with an unexpected approach to toler¬ 
ation, “ we cannot be all alike, and it is for another 
purpose I wanted to make your acquaintance. Could you 
lunch with me to-morrow ? ” 

The man’s personality interested me and I consented— 
the more willingly because there was no apparent reason 
why he should show me this civility. 

When we met the next day he did not leave me long 
in doubt. We had finished the more solid part of our meal, 
and were coquetting with a very fine port which he pressed 
on me while merely sipping at it himself. All the while he 
committed the enormity of puffing at a large cigar. Not 
that I personally cared what law a man made for himself, 
but whatever might be his other claim to distinction, 
Mr. Binyon proclaimed himself a barbarian by spoiling the 
flavour of a fine port by mingling it with that of tobacco. 
Worse was to follow, but of that anon. 

c( You are a relative of Sir James Eliot ? ” he asked 
inquiringly, as he passed the port and his cigar case. Mean¬ 
while a waiter was serving coffee and liqueurs. Mr. Binyon 
banished the common liqueurs with a wave of his hand. 
“ Bring the 1827 brandy,” he ordered. 

The waiter went for this treasure of the wine cellar, 
and while he was gone I drank coffee, lighted a cigar and 
answered that he was right, Sir James Eliot was my cousin. 
£ ‘ I take no other liqueur except this old brandy, and 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 191 

they serve it in glasses that can hold more than a tot,” he 
remarked as the waiter returned with a bottle of this noble 
wine and the spherical bulging tumblers best fitted to 
develop its flavour when fondled and warmed by loving 
hands. 

The wise waiter presented the long-necked bottle with 
the reverence of a high priest who regarded his office as 
sacred. He interposed humbly, but firmly, when 
Mr. Binyon attempted to fill the glasses generously. 

44 Not above the line please, sir, not above the line, 
or you will spoil the aroma,” he pleaded. Mr. Binyon 
thought perhaps he had been transgressing against the 
edicts of Deity, for he stopped at not more than double the 
usual allowance, and the waiter went away with the air of 
one turning from sin. 

44 Damned curious fellow, but takes his job seriously,” 
remarked Mr. Binyon, drinking half of the 1827 brandy at 
a gulp and pouring the rest into his coffee. 44 To come to 
the point,” he said, 4 4 do you think you could get me 
to know Sir James. He is close in with the War Minister, 
Lord Oisel, and that’s the man I want! ” 

It will be understood that at the time I knew little 
about Mr. Binyon, and still less about his plans or ambitions, 
nor was his personality at all winning. During our conver¬ 
sation he had thrown out many hints about his own great¬ 
ness and importance, but had not made a remark or asked 
a question about any interest of mine. He had ordered a 
rather vulgarly sumptuous lunch, and appeared to think 
me a mere pawn in some game he was playing. Also I 
resented his assumption and answered : 44 You would not 
get on with my cousin. No two men could be more different. 
You have opposite standards. Sir James Eliot is an ultra¬ 
fashionable society man who gives no end of thought to 


192 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

the cut of his clothes, to his hat, his boots, and all that lie 
between them. About these matters I judge you care 
little. You are absorbed in yourself and your work. It 
is impossible for you to realise how far you are asunder. 
For example he has said to me not once but many times 
that he would not eat twice in company with a man who 
smoked when drinking port, emptied his liqueur glass into 
his coffee or gulped down an old and rare brandy without 
fondling his glass, as I do this to warm it slightly and bring 
out the delicacy of the aroma.” 

The look of surprise in his face was something to see, 
but he retorted in the tone of a business man who recognises 
that a scheme is failing and turns to another method of 
attaining his end. 

“ You are kidding,” he said, <£ and probably that’s only 
a way of turning it down.” 

Shortly afterwards we parted, and I thought the affair 
ended ; but it turned out otherwise. 

Within a week I met Sir James Eliot and almost his 
first words were : <£ I hear you know a man called Binyon. 
Can you arrange an introduction ? The Minister of War 
wants to meet him, and so I think does the P.M.” 

Mr. Binyon had no place in his mind for small quarrels. 
His eye was fixed on the one object of getting the ear of 
someone in power and if his vanity had been ruffled at our 
previous interview, he did not show it. He only asked 
when and where he could meet Sir James; and on my 
suggesting taking a taxi to his flat in Mount Street he 
promptly agreed, and shortly afterwards we were shown 
into the old bachelor’s quarters. Probably their elegance was 
thrown away on Mr. Binyon. Never before had I met a 
man so concentrated on the attainment of an object. What 
that object was I did not know. He had used me only as 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 193 

a tool, and evidently his next step was to use Sir James in 
the same way. I perceived this and immediately feeling 
de trop departed on the plea of having another appointment. 

To the reader I may seem to have been too particular 
in recounting so small an event, but as very little is known 
about Mr. Binyon, and scarcely anything of him before 
the revolution, it seemed worth while to make a note of my 
brief experience. Sir James Eliot, though only a man of 
society, had an instinct for character, which he shared with 
u naturals,” children, and dumb animals. 

tc That’s the stuff out of which Royalty, the uncrowned, 
the oil-king is made. You know the sort of man gets in 
his head one idea—and one only—and lets it engross him. 
It matters nothing what it is, coal or cotton, poultry or 
pigs, he builds his world on it; if it’s pig, he thinks pig 
and dreams bacon ; if it’s chemistry as it is with this man, 
it swallows him entire. Nothing else matters. Here’s one 
who has got something and the world’s well lost if only 
he can get a show with it. Gad, I half envy him, feel as if 
life had only given me a few mince-pies and him a joint 
of beef. Then there’s another sign by which you can 
always recognise the born winner. He has no use for the 
squeezed lemon. He uses me for a purpose as he used you 
for a purpose. The purpose served, the lemon squeezed, 
the rind is tossed away. He would not be drawn about 
his secret, and when he got what he wanted—an introduc¬ 
tion to the Minister for War, he says to me coolly that I had 
been very sporting to give up so much of my time and he 
would not keep me longer from my gay diversions. It would 
only bore me to listen to the serious talk he meant to have 
with Oisel, in short I was turned down.” 

Sir James spoke with unwonted bitterness. No wonder. 
There was nothing he enjoyed more than to have a secret 


i 9 4 T HE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

which he could impart to the ladies in strict confidence, and 
on condition that not a word was to be divulged. 

The important point is made clear that, whatever 
Mr. Binyon was, he succeeded in obtaining access to one of 
the most powerful and the least scrupulous Ministers of 
the day. Had he not been so intent on his chemical studies 
he might have learnt that it was not a very difficult feat 
to get to know this particular servant of the Crown. On 
the formation of the Cabinet, Lord Oisel had been given 
the portfolio of the War Office, not for military, but for 
political reasons. He was one of the new aristocracy who 
had won his way to fame or to notoriety by his business 
qualities. Among these was the accomplishment of being 
able to assume a reckless devil-may-care frankness combined 
with a real secretiveness in everything that mattered. 

In plain words he was a very cunning man, one of 
those who vigilantly studied how to take full advantage of 
every favourable breeze. He and Binyon were alike in 
possessing a gift of concentration. The difference between 
them was, that whereas the Minister was ready at any 
time to sacrifice friends and adherents if they stood between 
him and the only object of his sincere worship, Money, the 
chemist was prepared to go equally far in devotion, to 
science in general, and particularly the science of chemistry. 
The Prime Minister of the day has also to be taken into 
account. He was a politician who had worked his way to 
the front by his ability to win votes. If he worshipped in 
any fane it was at the altar of that feminine divinity— 
Popularity. 

It is known that these three frequently met, assumably 
in a bargaining spirit, but there is no report of the pro¬ 
ceedings. Each knew the value of secrecy. A few facts 
leaked out, chiefly because advisers and experts had to be 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 195 

consulted. It is known that the trio were agreed that a 
rising had been planned to take place and each had some 
knowledge of the date ; the two Ministers from the Secret 
Intelligence Department, and Mr. Binyon from a source he 
would not divulge. 

It is also clear that Binyon wished to secure full power 
to suppress the revolution which he said he could do without 
help from the army or any other source. He was however 
most unreasonable or most dictatorial in his submission 
of terms. Yet there was some who defended him. It 
was clear he had made an important discovery and to say 
anything about it in any way before an agreement was 
signed and sealed was to trust Lord Oisel, and far from 
trusting, he viewed the man with keenest suspicion regarding 
him as one who would make no bones about applying to his 
own end knowledge thus acquired. 

The Prime Minister in all probability knew enough 
to make a shrewd guess at the truth, even if he did not 
hit it exactly. 

Sir James Eliot who could play the fool admirably and 
was often doing so, nevertheless had a keener mind than he 
got credit for, and it was sharpened by his rebuff. He made 
a bold guess when he said : 

“ Your scientific acquaintance has a Hunnish look, 
but I am told by those able to judge that his chemistry is 
not a sham. I’ll wager he has got a new poison gas or some 
contrivance of that kind for downing insurrections; and 
if I read him rightly wants above everything else to experi¬ 
ment with it on a crowd of people. He looks the sort of 
genius who would not count the cost in life if only he could 
get his infernal war engine tried and himself protected 
from the consequences. Oisel is trying to squeeze the 
secret out of him as a means of power. He is never more 


196 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

satisfied than when diddling a genius out of the credit 
that belongs to him. The P.M. is considering how best 
he can impress the electorate with the devastating power 
of the discovery and then win their votes by destroying it 
as too deadly a weapon for a nation to use against a brother 
nation.” 

ic I comprehend. He always seeks a pose where another 
would have a policy, and what a splendid pose ! So Christian 
and pacific.” 

With a Prime Minister deeply engaged in formulating 
plans to save himself and his party at the approaching 
general election, and a War Minister plotting to victimise an 
inventor it is no wonder that less than necessary attention 
was given to the threat of revolution. Indeed, very few 
people took it seriously. Many who were believed to be 
in the know held that the danger had practically passed 
away. Nothing connected with it appeared in the papers. 

It was in official minds that the rising was timed to 
take place on July 20th. The secret agents had the most 
convincing proof of it. Only they forgot that a revolution 
is not like a church festival fixed to a day. Cleverly and 
noiselessly their leaders advanced the date, and as everybody 
knows the attempt at revolution was made in the early 
morning of June 20th. 


XX 

Continuation of magazine article 

A FTER revolution had shown its grisly face in London, 
many of those who had places in the country retired 
to them, and among others was Sir James Eliot. When 
asked to make this investigation, my mind turned naturally 
to him. His cousin, Lord Oisel, as is well known, was 
killed in the rising, and I knew that he and Sir James had 
been thought by the inner circle of Ministers to have been 
in some way responsible for the massacre which made June 
20th a hated day in English history. In answer to my 
request to see him about the matter, he wrote by return 
that it would give him great satisfaction to do so. 

I motored to the old-fashioned little grange in a wooded 
nook of the Wiltshire Downs in which he was leading the 
simple life, and caught him in the act of trimming the 
neat grass walks of his flower garden. He looked extremely 
healthy, but a little more serious than before. 

There was no difficulty about getting him to talk. 
When I came out of the house after having removed the 
stains of travel, he hailed me from a corner where the 
garden spread out into a down. The corner was a tiny 
enclosure surrounded by a clipped hedge of cypress. As he 
poured out the tea, he warned me never to have anything 
to do with politicians. If a politician could use you to 
197 O 


198 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

serve himself, he would always do it. A few more ejacu¬ 
lations of more acrid character than was customary with him 
in the old times, and he was right into the heart of his 
grievance. 

44 Did you not expect the mob to lynch some of them ? ” 
he asked. c 4 Where was their secret service that they let 
the capital be exposed to a surprise ? It was not like a 
sudden rising of unarmed men; there were regiments 
of trained soldiers. Where did they practise their exercises 
and their shooting ? They had motors too and aeroplanes.” 

44 But tell me precisely what is your personal grievance,” 
I asked, and I repeated this whenever he returned to the 
bitter mood which seemed a result of too much brooding. 

Sir James is not a rural swain, but, if he will forgive 
my saying so, an elderly butterfly of fashion who regards 
himself as an exile and finds no compensation for Piccadilly, 
its clubs and gossip, in the charms of Downland. He was 
in his element canvassing the part played by various people 
in the revolutionary crisis. 

44 Members of the Government,” he said, 44 were among 
themselves agreed that they owed their discredit and 
eventual downfall to Mr. Binyon.” 

He went on to tell me that Binyon had disappeared 
after that terrible night in London when the revolution 
was brought to a tragic standstill by the use of a new agent 
in war which the best Government experts were unable to 
identify. Some held it to have been the new explosive for 
which chemists had long been seeking ; others demonstrated 
to their own satisfaction that it must have been a type of 
poison gas. The only point on which they agreed was 
that it had been employed indifferently against friend and 
foe. If Mr. Binyon had been found, he would have been 
shot as a traitor or tried for murder, and the Government 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 199 

would have prosecuted Sir James Eliot if they could have 
found evidence enough. They had in their ranks many 
excellent business men who took the view that public 
resentment would be assuaged if somebody were caught 
and hanged. 

Sir James was most pathetic about the persecution to 
which he had been subjected. A beady-eyed detective in 
plain clothes, accompanied by two large policemen, entered 
his flat with authority to search it for 66 papers.” He had 
difficulty in finding anything to furnish the flimsiest pretext 
for suspicion, for the only letters Sir James preserved were 
those from his estate. For invitations and so on he used the 
telephone. Their disappointment changed to exultation when 
they found on his writing table a book entitled “Private Note¬ 
book,” artlessly concealed under a sheet of blotting paper. 

“ I’ll thank you for that book, Sir James,” exclaimed 
the expert from Scotland Yard in a tone less diplomatic 
than he had hitherto used. No doubt he had observed 
a flush of guilt and shame on his victim’s face. 

4 4 It’s only my very private notebook,” pleaded the 
baronet. <c You will find nothing in that.” 

His answer was a cunning and a meaning gleam of a 
smile in the beady eyes. 

Of course he took it away to study and when it came 
back it was thumbed in a way to show that several people 
had scanned it in search for an address or a secret code. 
In vain, for it was only a prompter for the old Society man. 
Here he jotted down the impromptu anecdotes and stories, 
brief extracts from the newest book, songs, mots, expressions 
that woven into his conversation produced the charm 
that made it famous. A more disagreeable scene occurred 
at the very exclusive club to which he belonged, when the 
secretary led him to understand that he Was expected to 


200 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


resign. “ Beastly hard luck,” he added, “ but we cannot 
have a damned policeman lurking round to watch a member. 
You would hate it yourself—best to resign.” 

He felt that the last and worst blow had come when 
he found that a new valet whom he had engaged was a 
detective appointed to watch his comings and goings. One 
evening he discovered him opening his letters with the 
aid of warm water, reading and fastening them up again 
with gum, all in the most dexterous manner. This was 
the last straw. It made him resolve to leave London for 
his little country house. He informed the Government 
of his intention and said if anyone claimed a right to interfere, 
he would challenge it in the law courts. The worm had 
turned. His defiance was not accepted, and they did 
not interfere with his migration. Perhaps by the time 
this had occurred, they had lost all hope of finding Mr. 
Binyon. 

The worst of it was that Sir James remained dissatisfied 
in his own mind. He asked me to say this, leaving me free 
to give the facts in my own way. He said his cousin, Lord 
Oisel, after several interviews, held that Binyon had prob¬ 
ably discovered a highly effective new war weapon, but 
was too jealous and suspicious to trust anyone with the 
secret. On the part of the Government, Oisel had offered 
a million pounds for it, which had been obstinately refused. 
Binyon said that he would suppress that or any other attempt 
at revolution for that sum. It would be risking his life 
and he would chance that, but he would not part with his 
secret. What he wanted was carte blanche to deal with 
the rebels. When that was done he would be prepared to 
discuss terms of sale. They had asked what he would 
require if the revolution fizzled out of itself.* and he had 
replied promptly : “No play, no pay { ” 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 201 


“ My cousin, who was not an imaginative man,” con¬ 
tinued Sir James, 44 began to think that despite Binyon’s 
solid matter-of-fact appearance and the scientific learning 
to which all testified, he could be nothing but a lunatic. 
4 Do you really believe,’ he asked, 4 that England would 
or could enter into a contract with anyone to settle her 
rebellion if there is one ? ’ ” 

44 Why not ? ” replied Binyon obstinately and sulkily. 

Lord Oisel, a soldier with a lawyer’s craft, had what he 
called a brain wave. 44 Damn it! I know what I’ll do,” 
he said, and rang the house telephone bell. 44 Ring up my 
doctor, and send up William and James.” 

The suspicious rage that flushed his visitor’s face might 
have told anyone else than Lord Oisel that he had been 
a little previous. 44 I’ll have you examined by a doctor, 
my friend,” he said in a changed tone. 

44 And have me shut up in a madhouse,” exclaimed 
Binyon starting to his feet and beginning to move towards 
a French window opening on to a garden. My cousin 
rushed to stop him, but was himself stopped by a blow 
that sent him reeling into the arms of the two grooms he 
had summoned. 

44 Catch him,” he cried, as Binyon was making his exit. 
Then, as the two men hesitated, he told them not to. After 
all, he was in the wrong and thought also that he had made 
a fool of himself. As likely as not he had come very near 
turning comedy into tragedy. The air at the time was 
very full of rumours about new explosives and poison gasses 
being invented, and the Government had promised, along 
with other Governments of the west, not to use them. 
His simple plan had been devised to keep a possibly dangerous 
man in confinement till the revolution had either arrived 
or passed definitely into the category of things not done. 


XXI 

Conclusion of magazine article. Evidence of Major 
Fisher of the Air Service 

W HEN Sir James sat down to dinner he was a different 
man. The airing of his grievances had been a relief 
after his much brooding and loneliness. He was one of those 
who prefer“ the sweet shady side of Pall Mall” to all the mea¬ 
dows in Arcady. He became more like himself as he asked : 

“ Do you know how I caught out the police spy so 
nicely ? A real valet or butler is often as much of a 
‘ kernooser 5 in wine as his master, but this ignorant fellow 
knew nothing about the bottle of Madeira he had found 
open. It came from a cellar in France, and was a precious 
wine, and so old and strong that even I had to drink it 
from a liqueur glass. The spy must have thought it merely 
cider or some equally light thirst-quencher, for he had 
emptied the bottle a tumblerful at a time, and though he 
could mechanically open and close the letters, he was blind 
to everything else and did not see me enter the room and 
stand right in front of him.” 

When Sir James came to the Madeira, that is to say, 
at the end of the meal when other Christian men drink 
port, he held his liqueur glass up to the light to admire 
the colour of the wine, brought it under his nose, slowly 
sipped and then said : 


202 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 203 

“ You should see Major Fisher, a top-hole man and 
one of the few who know how to reserve speech till the 
right moment. He was on duty on the fateful night, 
commanding the airmen who were supposed to guarantee 
London against the threatened revolution. He got into 
the thick of it, and was so badly wounded that at one time 
it was believed he had gone out altogether. No one asked 
what he knew, and he did not volunteer, as it seemed to 
him, as to all of us, that Ministers were only endeavouring 
to save their faces, and that a trustworthy and impartial 
commission should be appointed to sift the facts. We do 
not ask in the interest of abstract virtue, nor even to clear 
besmirched reputations, but because it was of Imperial 
importance to find out who stopped the revolution. You 
will find Fisher like myself an assenting party to your pro¬ 
posal to publish the facts in your paper. Go and see him 
in the morning. He lives in a cottage on the Wylie. I 
would also advise you to find out what you can about 
a limited liability company called 4 Chemicals, Ltd.’ 
It began as a pottering little business, grew into a very 
large one, but after the revolution, was, I think, wound up. 
Now let us play billiards and talk nonsense. I have not 
had such a spell of serious conversation for years.” 

Even when pushing the billiard balls about, my mind 
refused to work on any but the same topic. It was different 
with Sir James. He shuttered down all serious questions 
and concentrated his wit on the game, losing no opportunity 
to praise his own game, pour scorn on mine, and address 
endearing or angry language to the billiard balls. 

By ten o’clock the next morning I was pushing my 
way along the road to Major’s Fisher’s cottage. 

Major Fisher had been apprised by telephone that 
I was on the way and was awaiting my arrival on the lawn 


204 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

in front of his diminutive but pretty old cottage. He was 
in a cleverly contrived vehicle shaped like a child’s peram¬ 
bulator, in which he could either sit or lie. With his hand 
he could work a lever that enabled him to run along the 
paths as easily as could be done on a bicycle. Maimed and 
scarred as he was, it required no effort of imagination to 
realise that he must have been a brave, alert soldier. 

With military directness too, as soon as the first greetings 
were spoken and an offer of hospitality made and refused, 
he entered upon the business that had brought me to him. 

“ Sir James Eliot told me all about you on the telephone,” 
he said. ct It would be a pity to waste such a fine morning 
indoors. You will find a chair and a table in the shadow 
of that yew.” And he wheeled away to a great tree that 
might have been planted when they laid the foundation 
of the old cottage. 

c< I am going to leave you here,” he continued. u When 
it still was doubtful whether I would ever regain the use 
of my hand, I dictated an account of what I saw as exact 
as I could make it. That is the manuscript on the table. 
You are at liberty to read it on two conditions. The first 
is, that if printed, it must appear as it stands without change 
either of interpolation or omission; the second is that if 
you cannot give this guarantee, you will restore the paper 
and make no use of it direct or indirect. The importance 
of this will be apparent when I tell you that when it was 
written, it was still on the cards that I might pass out, and 
with that knowledge before me I naturally tried to set it 
all down as truthfully and colourlessly as I could.” 

On receiving the required assurance he departed in 
his tiny coach, but not before indicating a little cabinet 
in the deepest shade of the yew “ Wherein,” said he, “ you 
will find hock, seltzer and ice should you feel thirsty or 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 205 

require a stimulus to carry you through my story, which is 
merely a statement of facts such as I might have made to 
my O.C. It has not any literary touch whatever.” 

It seemed a good time then to have a hock and seltzer, 
so I opened the cabinet before setting myself to study the 
document which is here reprinted exactly as it was received : 

On the night of the 20th June, I was in command 
of the patrolling aircraft based at Hendon. I came on at 
10 p.m. and was due off at 2 a.m. Instructions were to 
start aeroplanes at the rate of one every 15 minutes so as 
to keep a chain of them circling over London. All were 
armed, but my orders, read to every airman before starting, 
were that his duty was not primarily concerned with fighting. 
His duty was intelligence. He was handed a key map show¬ 
ing for the circuit the most convenient receiving post 
to which any sign of disturbance should be reported. Acting 
on a custom which was beyond the original instructions, 
but was approved by my Commanding Officer, at 1.15 
I went up, leaving Captain Norman in temporary command. 

My object was to take an irregular course over the 
East End and centre of London. It was a clear, starlit 
night—visibility good. Following the river till it reached 
the City, all was quiet. At 1.45 a.m. the first signs of dis¬ 
turbance were observed at Covent Garden market and the 
Borough market. It seemed that the large motor vans 
used for fruit and vegetables were more numerous than 
usual, but as the season for strawberries and other soft 
fruit was at its height, there was little ground for suspicion. 
As, however, the stir increased tremendously, I extinguished 
my lights and descended low enough to see what was taking 
place. From their attitude, policemen were apparently 
wishing to examine the contents of the closed motor lorries, 
and the drivers refusing to open them. As I rose, wondering 


206 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


whether the incident was worth reporting, a great bell 
started ringing, the time being 2.30 a.m. Immediately 
a new commotion began. The lorries were flung open and 
from each a number of armed men trooped out. Some 
of the policemen bravely tried to make arrests, but were 
quickly overpowered or shot. The revolution had begun. 

I signalled Hyde Park, where our troops were assembled, 
but they had already been warned and the first of them were 
dashing up in motors. If they imagined that there was 
only a fray to settle they were woefully disappointed. 
What I had witnessed was only a slight example of the 
manner in which rebel troops had been brought into the 
city. That they were troops was unmistakably true. 
No uniform could be discerned, but the men fell in, marched 
and wheeled in a way that showed them to have been trained 
and drilled. Here was a situation in which aircraft could 
take no part as a fighting unit. Friend and foe were in¬ 
distinguishable, especially as there were groups in which 
men in khaki and civilian dress were obviously fighting 
shoulder to shoulder. Either there had been a great 
desertion from the British ranks, or the enemy leaders had 
put some of their followers into uniform for the purpose 
of stealing an advantage out of the confusion that ensued. 
We in the air were paralysed for the same reason—if we 
dropped bombs, it would be to kill friend with foe. 

I had little time to debate the point as it soon became 
evident that in the air were craft easily distinguishable 
from those of the British army ; also, it became equally clear 
that some of those which showed our flag and used our 
signals were hostile. 

My first impression, after having examined the scene 
below, was that of a number of infuriated mobs, among 
whom was a leavening of men with some military training, 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 207 

looting and burning, each mob acting in isolation. The 
terrified inhabitants issued from the houses only partially 
dressed, and fled, those in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park 
rushing for safety to the camp there. It looked to me as 
if the rising would easily be suppressed, as, whenever a 
new outbreak occurred troops were immediately dispatched 
to the scene, and the rioters made no stiff resistance. Most 
of them seemed more intent on robbery than fighting. 
Still, as one rising was suppressed, another started, and 
more troops were sent out. It is of importance to put it 
on record that as far as my observation goes, there was up 
to this point comparatively little bloodshed. The riff-raff 
were too keen on the goods to take the trouble to kill the 
owners unless resistance was offered, and the loyal soldiers 
did not shoot for shooting’s sake. Often they were seen 
assisting the gallant firemen to quell the blazes that other¬ 
wise might have spread over London. 

They were obviously succeeding when the situation 
was suddenly changed. Nearly every small band of insur¬ 
gents had been dissipated, the army excelling itself in the 
precision with which each new conflagration was located and 
in the speed with which relief was dispatched. One began 
to think that the attempt at a revolution had definitely 
failed, though that was evidently not the opinion of the 
citizens who, many of them from dwellings that had not 
yet been attacked, continued to stream into Hyde Park. 

I was watching all this and at the same time keeping 
an eye on two suspicious-looking aeroplanes circling above 
the turmoil like falcons ready to swoop, when my ear amid 
the din caught the sound of rifles and machine guns. A 
disciplined and well-equipped army led by tanks was also 
entering the Park. How it came there was a mystery 
solved afterwards, but all I thought of then was that these 


208 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


minor attacks had only been feints, means to distract atten¬ 
tion and compel the army to weaken itself by rushing troops 
to the rescue. This was the great attack, and it was delivered 
fearlessly and skilfully. It had always seemed to me that the 
military authorities had taken too light-hearted an estimate 
of the fighting power of those who were known to be organ¬ 
ising a revolution. Young officers of the Guards were 
only echoing their seniors when they spoke contemptuously 
of having been put on to a police job. The revolutionary 
leaders were experienced military leaders. It was easy to 
reconstruct their plan of battle. Small bodies of incen¬ 
diaries were sent out for the purpose of spreading alarm and 
diverting attention. Spies and scouts had instilled into 
the minds of the citizens that if war broke out, the safest 
place was the camp. That, of course, is a theory only, 
but its truth can, and no doubt will be tested. About 
the facts there can be no question. Many fighting men had 
been dispatched to quell disturbances in other parts of 
London and vast numbers of non-combatants had been 
omitted. 

Though weakened in these ways, the army would 
probably have been able to master the situation but for an 
occurrence that neither loyalist nor rebel could have fore¬ 
seen. I had been ordered by wireless to concentrate 
attention on the aircraft, and what I saw deserves close 
attention as it may mark the beginning of a disastrous 
chapter in English history. 

Among the aeroplanes was a grey-coloured one that 
carried nothing to show its nationality. Up to now it 
had circled above the field of operation at no great pace 
except that when a larger crowd than usual collected, it 
would dash to the neighbourhood at very high speed. At 
the moment, it hung in the air high above Hyde Park as 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


209 

if the aviator were making a complete survey of the battle. 
He could see the aeroplanes, a cluster of British, obviously 
working in combination with one another, about fifty others 
flying separately, each apparently avoiding the rest and 
the one I was in; on the ground, two armies rapidly 
becoming intermingled in a fight that began with a bayonet 
charge and remained a hand-to-hand scuffle. Those who 
had bayonets or revolvers fought with them, and such as 
had lost their weapons fought with their fists. A huge 
panic-stricken crowd of refugees ran confusedly first this 
way then that. The grey aeroplane descended in a spiral 
and circled round the field of combatants and fugitives. 
Instinctively recognising that the airman must have an 
object in view, I planed across to watch him. 

When his survey was over, he mounted, flew north a 
little, then swung back and came south again with the wind 
in his teeth. Over the masses of struggling men he slowed 
for a few seconds, then dashed into the wind. Almost 
simultaneously there was such an explosion as I had never 
heard before. The noise of fighting was stilled, and a 
dark cloud of smoke covering all except the leaping flames 
which in places changed the blackness to a moving fiery gold. 
I did my best to intercept hiim and with a foolish stubborn¬ 
ness held on even after it was iflear that my ’plane was out- 
flown and outranged. The n}an, whoever he was, simply 
played with me, slowing down .and even circling back and 
shooting at long range, as if experimenting with a new gun. 
My only chance was that through over-confidence he might 
meet with an accident, but the jiuck was against me. My 
memory is not clear whether he hit me or the ’plane first. 

What remains of my story was told me after¬ 
wards. I was found lying unconscious beside the wrecked 
aeroplane in a field close to the Sussex Downs and within 


2io THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


sight of St. Margaret’s Bay. The field belonged to a dear 
old woman called Mrs. Dare, who had been a nurse but, 
having become too old for hospital nursing, had taken to 
keeping poultry as a means of ekeing out her scanty means 
of subsistence. I owe everything to her care and skill. 
She induced the onlookers—a half-dozen or so of farm 
labourers, who had witnessed the crash and run to see who 
had been brought down—to carry me to the nearest dwelling, 
her own little thatched cottage, on an improvised stretcher, 
at the same time dispatching the daughter who lived with 
her to bring the village medical man. He came, made 
his examination, shook his head and said that the case was 
hopeless. The hospital nurse did not over-rate the village 
doctor. She hurried out and returned with Mr. Trevor- 
Birkendale, the famous surgeon, who had retired to spend 
the evenings of his days on his little estate on the Downs. 

“ Never was a call more welcome,” he explained to me 
afterwards. fi< I was bored stiff with doing nothing and 
accepted a really difficult task as a godsend. It was not 
you I welcomed, but a complicated and almost hopeless 
case. It gave me fresh energy ; it renewed my youth. 

I laughed with the old glee when, after long pondering 
there came to me a solution of the difficulty many would 
have thought insoluble. You have been of as much use to 
me as I to you.” 

The Service acted as though they assumed me dead. 
Only two enquiries were made, both before my removal 
from Mrs. Dare’s cottage to Birkendale Lodge. The first 
was by the village policeman, who had previously been to 
the local doctor. He came, pocket-book and pencil in 
hand, wanting to know my name, occupation, residence, 
age and particulars of the occurrence. Not being able to 
obtain a positive reply to any of his queries, he asked if 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 211 


there was anyone charged. Mrs. Dare said that she did 
not know. She only saw the aeroplane come down. 

“ It must be left to the inquest,” he replied, and went 
on to c( reckon they would have to decide whether it was 
an act of God or a common murder.” 

The other was put by the petty officer in charge of the 
disposal of Government aeroplanes wrecked during military 
operations. He sold the wreckage to a man who buys such 
things to break them up and sell the materials. A printed 
form was handed to Mrs. Dare ordering Blank of Blank 
rank and Blank address to report himself at the Air Office 
with a doctor’s certificate when convalescent. 

In neither case was any further inquiry made, so that 
for the two years which elapsed I was dead to the army. 
For many weeks I lay in semi-consciousness, hovering 
between life and death ; for many more my mind was 
blank and stupefied, and only recently has it returned to 
the normal. Gradually, however, memory revived and I 
am now able to trace the course of events clearly. 

Some may think that I ought as soon as possible to 
have placed this information before the authorities. I say 
deliberately that I refrained from distrust of the Govern¬ 
ment. They were in close communication with Mr. 
Binyon for two months haggling and bargaining for the 
possession of his secret. It was impossible for them to 
come to a clear decision because they were divided into 
a military faction which wanted it as a source of power, 
and a pacifist faction which beheld in their mind’s eye 
millions of horrified voters refusing to vote for a Govern¬ 
ment possessed of so deadly a war weapon. 

They were also inefficient. Never yet have they been 
able to answer the question, “ Who was Mr. Binyon ? ” 
I, still an invalid, and till the end a cripple, found the 


212 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


answer by the application of a little common sense that 
was not swayed by ambition or fear of any electorate. 
He began his active career as Professor Bennett Lough ton 
in the University of Leeds. That position contented him 
for a very brief period. Brilliant as were his prospects, 
he resigned, changed his name and retired to a country 
house in Wales for the purpose of working at an invention 
of which he already had conceived the idea. It was 
necessary for him, as secrecy was necessary, that he should 
depend upon the accuracy of his calculations. Experiments 
would have been fatal to secrecy. An opportunity for 
experiment occurred, and he carried it out coldly and 
ruthlessly, without hate and without pity. 

Where is Mr. Binyon now ? I do not know, but for 
my wounds the rest of my life would be devoted to searching 
for him among the countries which hate and envy England. 
It is impossible for me to get rid of the foreboding that he 
has carried his devilish invention to our enemies, but I am 
out of action, a helpless cripple for life. Some upheld the 
story that Mr. Binyon had been seen in his grey aeroplane 
flying seaward high above the white cliffs of Dover; that 
he had landed on the sea and been taken aboard a ship 
that seemed to wait for him and thereafter went down in 
deep water. Many believed that he would come again with 
our enemies. No material existed for enabling one to 
sift the grains of truth hidden under the growing mass of 
legend and myth. 

* # * * * 

So ended Major Fisher’s account as printed in the 
magazine. After I had finished reading I continued to 
gaze at the much-fingered, time-worn grey paper as it 
were a spell. Whenever I think of it the scene returns 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 213 

with undiminished vividness—the room with its hand-made 
furniture and log fire, Bessie composedly doing needlework, 
Dr. Turnbull discussing a new water-mill with Captain 
Hart, who had come over for the purpose. 

The conversation that followed illustrated the vast 
difference in our point of view. I was as one staggered by 
the news of an awful calamity ; they who had read the 
paper a hundred times and had come to regard it as the 
account of an episode in long-past history were composed 
and matter-of-fact. To Bessie it was an enthralling though 
sorrowful tale, and she embroidered it with a few of the 
legends and traditions that had been handed down about 
Mr. Binyon. She related them as they had been heard 
on the lips of those who were not far separated as she 
from the time when these things happened. 


F 


XXII 

The Scarlett MS. How Sir John Scarlett boxed 

WITH A COLOURED OFFICER OF HIGH RANK 

A S I sat next morning brooding in depression on the 
sidelight that had been thrown on England’s fate, 
Bessie came in aglow with her ride across the Downs in a 
cold north-east wind. She was always in high spirits after 
a gallop or a run. 

“ I am going to take you to see the last of our aristocrats,” 
she said, “ and you must be sure to address her properly. 
She is Lady Crosby Scarlett, a descendant of the Scarletts 
of Scarlett Honour in the County of Yorkshire. Nobody 
in the Settlement calls her so except myself, for they all 
think, like Dr. Turnbull, that titles of nobility are the 
vainest of distinctions, but I adore them.” 

“ I am sure you do,” I answered in her own vein, for 
even at the moment of most extreme dejection I could not 
resist the contagion of her high spirits. “ What would 
give you more joy than to change plain Bessie into Lady 
Elizabeth or even Lady Betty ? It would be like quitting 
the stillroom for the boudoir. You couldn’t imagine a 
Lady Betsy, and Lady Bet is impossible. How would you 
like Lady Lizzie ? It sounds like a half-way house. What 
is Lady Crosby Scarlett’s first name ? And why do you 
want me to see her ? ” 


214 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 215 

“ Her name is not that of housekeeping Bessie, nor 
Elizabeth, nor Betsy ; it’s neither Bet nor Lizzie. I want 
you to see her that you may love her for herself alone, old 
though she be. Also, she has an account of the escape of 
her progenitor, Sir John Scarlett. He discarded the title 
which she has preserved, and liked to be known simply as 
Jack Scarlett, who was one of the best of the founders of 
the Settlement. Lady Crosby Scarlett loves him for his 
bravery and hates him for discarding the title. In this 
simple republic not all with blue blood in their veins really 
forget it when trying to be hail-fellow-well-met with Tom, 
Dick and Harry, but they bow the knee in public to 
democratic equality whatever they may think in private. 
She is an out-and-outer. Only it will be fun for you to dis¬ 
cover for yourself. Come along and make her acquaintance.” 

I thought at first she was making game of me, but she 
soon dispelled that idea. 

“ We are nearing the noble lady’s ancestral hall,” she 
said, “ so buck up ; I hate to catch you nursing your 
hump-” 

The rest of the sentence came not from her lips, but 
from her eyes—a glance shot under her black eyelashes. 

“ She will expect the distinguished stranger—that is you 
—to show us poor rustics an example, as thus : e My lady, 
I am proud to meet your ladyship.’ Too antique, you say, 
too like the family butler ? I have read the phrase in 
novels, but maybe they were those of the eighteenth 
century, and her style is of the twentieth. She likes me 
to call her auntie, and in a country of no titles it has not 
been thought worth while to enquire into her right to 
use one, but she will be pleased no end if you do it only 
once. So please say something courtly to her.” 

We had approached the seat of the Lady Elizabeth 



216 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


Crosby Scarlett, and though only a thatched cottage, it was 
not without touches of refinement. A few pots with last 
year’s withered flowers, a branch of woodbine—green 
budding already—a berry-laden holly bush, distinguished 
the garden from the mere cabbage and potato plots of the 
other cottages. 

Bessie opened the door and we walked straight in. A 
woman well over fifty, with bright eyes like those of a 
robin, advanced to greet me. With a bow I said that it 
was a pleasure and an honour to meet Lady Crosby 
Scarlett, of whom I had heard so much. She answered 
with a delighted smile and the ordeal was over. 

It was easy to converse with her because she liked to 
do the talking herself. Thus there was abundant oppor¬ 
tunity to study her face. It was a curious example of the 
way in which type and feature can be transmitted for 
generations, though a droop of her lips and a very small 
chin told plainly that the force and freedom of the great 
ladies of the twentieth century, though not the amiability, 
had weakened in her case. Her conversation was mainly 
on two subjects—her family, and, sad to say, the rheumatism 
which had been her malady for years. 

One of her very feminine characteristics was conspicuously 
advertised. Hanging on the wall were a number of fashion- 
plates such as the twentieth century magazines issued with 
every number. That was not unusual. These pictures, 
originally not sold but given away, had now become scarce 
and valuable—I had come across several people who 
collected them. But she had attempted to copy the fashion 
in her own dress, and made with the simple woollens of the 
Settlement, and I could scarcely help laughing at the result, 
which might have been to parody the fashions of women’s 
dress in the years that followed the Great War. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 217 

By the purest luck I found a way straight to her heart. 
When fishing on a moorland stream in Yorkshire I had come 
across the Honour of Scarlett. It was a ruin, covered with 
a great matting of ivy and the Crosby Scarletts lived in a 
modern mansion called “ The New Honour,” about two 
miles distant. The name of the owner was Crosby, but 
he had married a Scarlett, purchased the property, assumed 
the name of Crosby Scarlett, ran a pack of hounds of his 
own, bred pedigree cattle, carried on with greater success 
than ever his great factory at Leeds, and at the same time 
was a recognised county magnate. So I was soon deep in a 
conversation about her celebrated family, the country 
round, the Honour, its moors, streams and tough York¬ 
shire farmers. 

No sort of talk could have been sweeter to her ears. 
When Bessie, who had previously been a quiet, attentive 
listener, exactly at the right moment suggested that I 
might like to see or even to copy her famous manuscript 
she met the request as one who receives rather than grants 
a favour. 


Lady Scarlett’s MS. 

“ It is rather precious,” said Lady Scarlett, as she opened 
an old oak chest. She took out a paper covered with what 
to me looked quite modern script. 

“ It is a hundred and sixty years old, and was written 
by the Honourable Horatio Fitzwilliam, who was born in 
the Settlement many years after the arrival of my progenitors. 
He married the youngest daughter of my ancestor, Sir 
John Scarlett, and was a great favourite with her father and 
mother, who in later life were fond of telling about their 
escape and subsequent adventures. The Scarletts were a 


218 7 HE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


far older family than the Fitzwilliams, and I have all the 
necessary documents to prove our rank when this period 
of trial is over and England is restored to her old proud 
position with her King and Parliament, her landed gentry, 
her cathedrals and village churches, her villages and 
beautiful almshouses. Often when I have a bad night and 
cannot sleep, I console myself with trying to recover the 
heavenly vision of England as she must have been in the 
reigns of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V. 

She handed the manuscript to Bessie. Not for worlds 
would she have hinted distrust of a stranger. 

“ It is like killing two birds with one stone,” she said. 
“ Dr. Turnbull asked me for it a little while ago. He 
wants it copied for his collection of documents relating to 
the Settlement. He may keep it as long as he likes; 
there is no need to tell him to take care of it.” 

The manuscript was named “ The Escape of Sir John 
and Lady Scarlett, as told by them to the writer and their 
son-in-law, Horatio Fitzwilliam.” What follows is a copy 
of it:— 

Sir John Scarlett was twenty-four and newly married 
at the time of the invasion. Even in old age he was straight 
and strong, healthy and jolly. In his youth he must have 
been a fine example of manhood, distinguished at the 
University more as a sportsman than a student, fond of 
out-door pursuits, a first-rate shot, a sound bat at cricket, 
a plus golfer and extremely handy with his fists. He had 
chosen a wife like himself—a hockey-player, a horsewoman 
and a mountaineer. They were still in the honeymoon 
stage and had occupied Scarlett Honour, not the ruin of 
that name but the new house called after it, their family 
seat, for six weeks. 

When the catastrophe occurred they were eating a 


THE COLLAPSE OP HOMO SAPIENS 219 

simple lunch in the shelter of a small plantation overlooking 
the timbered park in which the house lay half concealed 
from the village outside. Sir John had been shooting, 
and as a sharp wind was blowing they had retired to the 
little wood to consume sandwiches and apples. Suddenly 
there came the noise of an explosion followed by cries of 
pain and terror. Both rushed to the edge of the wood, 
only to see their house blazing and the poor hinds with 
their wives and children being killed, some shot from 
aeroplanes that had appeared on the scene and were dashing 
hither and thither, pursuing groups and even individuals 
who could scarcely run for terror. Armed men jumped 
out as the aeroplanes landed, and with savage yells joined 
in the slaughter. Sir John threw down his uneaten apple 
and would have rushed to the rescue, but his wife flung 
herself on him, exclaiming, “ They are a hundred to one, 
Jackie. What could you do with your shot-gun ? You 
may be of far more use if you wait to see what it is all about.” 

Impulsive and reckless as he was, it was apparent to 
him that she was right. One man had not the remotest 
chance against an armed band, so he held back and watched 
while those who followed their instinct to run were shot 
down mercilessly; such as tried to make a fight under¬ 
went the same fate, and a little group of women and 
children who piteously held their hands up and begged for 
mercy were ruthlessly slain. 

Sir John and his wife crept back to the wood. It was 
already too late for a rescue even if there had been any 
force to carry it out. The assassins were expert at their 
dreadful work and soon the English voices were silent and 
the shooting almost ceased. One aeroplane after another 
rose and went away, and the men who were left set about 
the destruction of the houses. 


220 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


“ We must leave at once,” said Sir John. “ This wood 
is too near. Presently they will search it for fugitives. 
Come, my love, let us make for the loneliest part of the 
moor where I know a gully which they are very unlikely 
to find.” 

They quitted the wood. They crept over the most 
exposed places; they ran when out of sight in the depres¬ 
sions and eventually reached a great rent in the earth, 
called Ploughman’s Dene, where they rested till the day¬ 
light failed. Then they climbed to the top of the bank 
and watched the fires break out and flare up across the 
countryside. They listened to the explosions and sometimes 
caught, or imagined they caught, the distant shrieking 
of men and women who a few hours ago had probably 
been working and jesting with one another in the 
fields. No disturbance occurred in their immediate neigh¬ 
bourhood, even when on the second day there came what 
they thought a new army completing the fiendish work of 
the first. Probably the spies and informers believed there 
was nobody on the bare moorland to which they had fled. 
There were no human dwellings, and from a distance it 
looked unfit to provide even a rabbit with a hiding-place. 
Yet there were some irregularities in the surface, and the 
fugitives could always keep out of sight. 

Sir John, after three days, thought that the immediate 
danger was past, and began to consider what next he should 
do. He did not move from his gully except to collect food, 
plentiful enough in the wake of a well-fed army. A 
surprise awaited him. 

One fine afternoon he and his wife were having their 
mid-day meal at a little distance from their place of con¬ 
cealment. They chose it for the sake of the water from a 
well that came poppling over the rocks to a ripple of a 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 221 


brook that ran down the deep middle of the Dene. Some 
hazel bushes screened them from view, if there had been 
any visitor to a spot so lonely. 

Sir John was handing water to his wife and cheering 
her by saying that it was the wine of the country, when 
suddenly an aeroplane came into view flying so low as 
almost to brush the heather. They crouched under the 
hazel bushes as they saw the occupant alight on a flat 
piece of ground near them. He was a young coloured 
officer in uniform. They watched him the more closely 
because Sir John had no weapon if it came to fighting. 

The coloured officer first took out a parcel which 
seemed to be food. Then he took up his gun and then a 
camera. For a moment or two he hesitated and carefully 
scanned the countryside. He could see for miles, and no 
human figure, no human habitation, was visible. Sir John 
gave a sigh of relief when he saw him put the gun back 
in the aeroplane. Evidently he meant to enjoy himself, 
for, after looking about, he chose an inconspicuous seat 
among the heather and was soon engaged in making a meal. 
Sir John was in hopes that he would go quietly back. That 
was not to be. The stranger took his water-bottle, found 
it empty, and without hesitation made for the water which 
he saw bubbling over the stones. Sir John pulled himself 
together. 

“ It will be a race for the gun,” he whispered to his wife. 
The man could not avoid seeing them, and there was no 
chance of Sir John carrying out a surprise attack. 

Lady Scarlett had scarcely time to creep among the 
bushes before the men came into full view of one another. 
The stranger might be astonished, but did not show it. 

“ Hands up ! ” he cried in the tone of one used to 
command. Sir John’s brain had been working rapidly. He 


222 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


recognised in an instant that if the stranger could get to 
his aeroplane, which was on the level about a hundred 
yards distant, he would not only have the advantage of a 
weapon, but be in a position to call up some of the coloured 
soldiers who had not time to get far away. At once, 
therefore, he himself made a sprint for the aeroplane. But 
the other was nearer and seemed to divine his intention, 
and started to run back. Lady Scarlett watched the race 
with growing despair. Her husband, though a good runner, 
was outpaced, and the dark soldier got the gun without 
needing to enter the machine. It was a wicked-looking 
new invention. 

<c Another step forward and you are dead,” said his 
opponent in the convincing tone of one inured to battle 
and danger. Sir John pulled up, hoping that in a parley 
he might catch his antagonist momentarily off his 
guard. 

The black soldier’s stern and keen face held out little 
promise of that. Yet there was something about him in 
that moment of suspense which astonished an Englishman 
who, like most of his countrymen, held c( niggers ” in very 
slight estimation. This one’s voice was as clear and cultivated 
as that of a professor and his English as pure. Strongly 
built and well set up, his appearance was as soldierly as 
that of a Guardsman. When he spoke it was in a tone 
of hard irony. 

“ It’s a fine afternoon,” he said, “ and butcher’s work 
is nauseating, but in these times the jule is safety first, 
and unless you can give me a better explanation than 
seems likely to be forthcoming . . . well, you, a white 
man, would have made short work of me if your legs had 
not failed.” 

“ There you are wrong,” retorted Sir John stoutly; “ it 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 223 

would have been enough for me to get between you and 
the gun. My bare hands would have done the rest.” 

“ You mean you could have made short work of a 
wretched nigger if you were on level terms ? ” 

“ That is my exact meaning,” said Sir John in a tone 
of contempt. 

The dark officer’s face for one moment looked like 
that of one who had been lashed across the face with a whip. 
His hand tightened on his gun and his eyes glittered like 
steel as he saw the insolent scorn of an enemy whose life 
was in his hands. Then covering Sir John with his gun, 
he said : 

“ I in your estimation am a savage, not because I am 
stupid or ignorant—I was educated in the same college as 
yourself and took a higher degree, if, as I suppose, you are 
Sir John Scarlett—but because my skin is not white. Even 
desperation cannot quell your insolence. I could shoot 
you as easily and with as much pleasure as I could stamp 
on a wasp, but it would give me more satisfaction to knock 
the stuffing out of a damned Englishman. As to the gun, 
look, I toss it on the bank and stand between you and it. 
Come for it if you dare ; there are only two fists in the way.” 

Suiting the action to the word, he drew back, placed 
the gun on a grassy knoll and then stepped forward to 
confront the considerably astonished Sir John. 

££ I never thought a nigger could be so good a sport,” 
said he, taking off his coat. 

The officer’s eyes blazed at the word ££ nigger,” but he 
uttered not a word. His reply took the form of a blow 
which narrowly missed Sir John’s chin, but caught his 
shoulder, drove him back for three paces and incidentally 
let him know that he was not dealing with a novice. On 
his part the officer’s confidence was confirmed by the effect 


224 


FHE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


of his first blow ; he evidently under-estimated his opponent. 
He was to discover his mistake. Sir John Scarlett was not 
a carpet knight. At Eton and Cambridge he had been 
more intent on physical than mental education, and 
although not the most brilliant sportsman of his day, was 
pre-eminently what is called a “ sticker,” the sort of man 
who never failed when put on to stop a rot. 

His adversary, having failed in his ambition to end 
the fight with a single overwhelming punch, followed with 
a whirlwind attack in which he feinted in one direction, 
struck in another and danced round his man ready to seize 
the slightest chance of an opening. Sir John scarcely 
appeared to move, yet there was always something in the 
way of his opponent’s fist, and the dark fighter seemed to 
learn instinctively that he was being waited for; that a 
mistake on his part would be promptly taken advantage of 
by this quiet fighter. 

The knowledge seemed to madden him so that he 
fought in a very ecstasy of fury, so much so that Sir John 
believed that he would wear himself out. Almost, but 
not quite too late, he discovered that there was a method 
in the other’s madness. Suddenly he dashed in and gripped 
Sir John and the fight was changed into a wrestling match. 
Then an unhappy occurrence deepened the mutual ani¬ 
mosity. Sir John was a great wrestler, and managed to 
obtain a grip that would have ended the contest if the 
dark man had not in his desperation forgotten the ideas 
of good form he had picked up at Cambridge and bit 
viciously at the neck of his adversary, at the same time 
kicking with the spurred boot. Pain and disgust enraged 
the Englishman. With a tremendous effort he lifted his 
opponent off the ground, swung him round and round, then 
brought him to the earth with a thud. He lay motionless. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 225 

Sir John, panting after his great exertion, stood by 
with clenched fists ready to end the combat when he rose. 

This was the position when Lady Scarlett, who had up 
to this watched the fortunes of the fray with silent agony, 
now rushed forward exclaiming, “ Don’t hit him again, 
Jackie, he spared our lives, dear ; Jackie, don’t! ” Her last 
ejaculation was caused by a hard, vigilant motion of her 
husband, who thought he saw his adversary pulling himself 
together as if to rise. 

“ It’s a case of kill or be killed,” replied Sir John without 
moving his eye from the prostrate figure. “ If he has had 
enough, let him say so.” 

The man rose to his feet and said : “ I thank you, 
madam,” and looked strangely proud in his new attitude of 
humility. 

Sir John, feeling as he said afterwards, that they were 
in a new atmosphere, made no attempt to renew the 
conflict. 

<c It makes no difference, madam,” said the officer, 
<e except that I prefer to keep my vow.” 

“ And what is your vow ? ” asked Lady Scarlett with 
the gentleness of an angel. 

<c That of one hundred thousand soldiers of my country,” 
he replied, iC who have sworn that if beaten by an English¬ 
man at anything they will never see another sun go down.” 

He walked toward his aeroplane and had almost reached 
it when Sir John ran up to him with the gun that had 
apparently been forgotten. It was refused by the dark man, 
who said : <£ Keep it in memory of my folly and of your 
own, for you are doomed as well as I, Carthago delenda est. 
Your England has fallen; her glory has passed away. 
Already the work of destruction is near completion. If 
you escape a soldier’s death, it will only be to die of 


226 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


famine or pestilence. To have shot you would have been 
a merciful act.” 

He had been starting his engine as he spoke and was 
out of hearing before an answer could be made. 

Lady Scarlett stood as still as an image, for the manner 
of the officer had on her imaginative mind a more woe- 
producing effect than his words. Her more practical- 
minded husband remarked that it was a damned near 
thing, and he now remembered the man at Cambridge, 
not in his college though. 

“ Our college knew the folly of admitting coloured 
students, who were only spies,” he added. 

He slipped down to a pool of water, and while washing 
away the blood that he had shed freely, remarked that his 
adversary was a curious mixture—if you scratched those 
gents from the Orient you would find a Tartar—when his 
comments were interrupted by the suppressed shriek of 
his wife, who was looking fixedly up at the sky. He stopped 
to look and saw the aeroplane that had ascended to a great 
height was swiftly and without any guidance descending. 
In a very short time, which nevertheless seemed ages, it 
crashed on the earth miles away. They did not go to look, 
but they knew that the officer had carried out his vow. 


XXIII 


The Scarlett MS. continued. How refuge was found 

IN A SHEBEEN 

OIR JOHN was nothing if not practical. As, with 
^ the assistance of Lady Scarlett, he was washing 
the blood and mud from his wounds, and she was giving 
thanks that they were not more serious, he stopped all of 
a sudden and exclaimed : “ By Jove, I’ve got it! ” 

“ Got what ? ” she asked. 

“ A hiding-place,” he replied. 6i It is not safe here, and 
it wouldn’t be safe to tramp far, but not more than five 
miles away there’s the best hiding-place in Yorkshire.” 

“ What sort of a place ? ” 

“ A shebeen,” said he. 

“ And what on earth’s a shebeen ? ” she enquired. 

“An illicit distillery,” he answered. “ You see, one 
Government after another has been piling high duties on 
beer and spirits. Then gangs of ne’er-do-wells got together 
to make whisky on the quiet. Whether the tax is nine-tenths 
or nineteen-twentieths of the price, I cannot say, but if 
they dodge the tax and take a third or even a fourth of the 
price charged by publicans they get a good sale and high 
profit. Do you understand ? ” 

Womanlike, she did not understand, not even when he 
said it all over again, but proposed to go the next day. 

227 


228 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


“ No, to-night, dearie,” he answered. ie I’ve a feeling 
that this place is no longer safe, and the smuggler’s den 
is about five miles across the moor ; we must start now.” 

She thought he wouldn’t be fit after so hard a fight, 
but he laughed her objection away. It wanted a quarter 
to one when the fight began, and it wasn’t half-past two 
now; besides, it might be occupied. The police had not 
found it, nor the revenue officials. They might suspect what 
was going on, but they had not spotted the shebeen so far. 

She said that it would be risky to go across the moor 
in daylight, but he argued that it would be still more so 
in the dark, and besides, he had only been once there, 
and the entrance was cunningly hidden and strongly barred. 

Although Sir John was very much at home on the moors 
he felt some doubt about the route he should follow. On 
any ordinary occasion he would have taken the highway 
which ran through the little valley below the fir plantation 
in a corner of which they stood, but what he had seen of 
the hamlets and single cottages had made him pull his 
wife into cover very hastily. Soldiers were in the cruel 
antique style laying the country waste and dealing with 
the inhabitants with indescribable barbarism. He was 
anxious to save her from witnessing scenes that had gone 
far to unnerve him. Had Lady Scarlett already noticed 
them ? She was not the sort to faint or exclaim, but she 
had placed a hand over her eyes and dived into the wood 
where she now stood quiet but with dilated eye and nostril, 
while every now and then her head shook violently and 
her teeth clashed together. 

“ Darling,” he said, and took her in his arms, and there 
came to her the relief of tears. They streamed down her 
cheeks and there was no further need for explanation or 
repression. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


229 

“We will take the hill road, though it’s longer and 
more difficult,” said Sir John, forcing himself to speak 
simply and without emotion, “ and we will start now.” 

As is the case with many who lead an out-door life and 
are interested in natural history, observation had become 
a habit and an instinct with Sir John. He was in no mood 
for talking, and he judged by his wife’s face that it had 
been enough to show his sympathy and understanding. 
Any further attempt to comfort her would only renew 
her excitement and distress. So they passed silently along 
the green ride that ran through the middle of the wood. 
He looked up, remembering the pheasants he had shot in 
this very ride, and was wondering if ever he would shoot 
pheasants more, when, instead of a pheasant, a flight of 
aeroplanes flew over. After an interval came another, then 
more and more, till he luckily began to surmise that they 
were being systematically despatched, a guess which proved 
true when he timed the period between flights by his 
watch. Mechanically he noted the intervals till they came 
to the very edge of the wood. Exactly ten minutes was 
usual, but one batch came at a twelve minutes’ interval, 
another at eight. 

He did not speak to his wife till they had almost got 
through the last grove of old oak-trees, and then there lay 
in front of them a stretch of bare pasture bounded by a 
piece of wild country occupied only by tall broom and 
gorse. Then he said : 

“ Darling, I have been timing these aeroplanes. They 
are being despatched from Hull, I should think, at the rate 
of a company every ten minutes, and are flying very low 
over the hills. After the next passes, can you make a sprint 
so as to clear this open space before the new lot makes its 
appearance ? ” 


Q 


230 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

At first she did not understand as her wits had been 
wandering, but on the words being repeated she pulled 
herself together, and when he gave the word, started and 
ran like a hare across the danger zone, getting under the 
broom a good three minutes before the next detachment 
of aircraft appeared on the far horizon. The incident was 
probably the beginning of her salvation. It brought 
her mind back from the horrors in which she found herself 
placed, to the peril of the moment. At every new diffi¬ 
culty she rose to the occasion and played her part with 
a concentrated attention which left no room for spectres. 

It was dusk when they arrived at the shebeen and 
Sir John was in a ferment of anxiety. He knew that those 
engaged in illicit distilling belonged to the dregs of society, 
landless and desperate men who were in the habit of running 
great risks every day and every hour of the day. He could 
not imagine that during an orgy of murder and plunder 
they would be content to lie inactive in their cavern, and 
if they did, how was he to compel an entrance ? 

He was soon to discover that there was no immediate 
cause for foreboding. The great stone used to block and 
guard the entrance was thrown down and the door open. 
Inside they found on a rock that served for a table, six 
plates of meat apparently untasted, and six jugs of beer 
that had not been even sipped. 


XXIV 


The Scarlett MS. continued. They are joined by 

OTHER FUGITIVES 

QIR JOHN and his lady in after days used to relate 
^ with amusement that they accepted this arrange¬ 
ment as a natural dispensation of Providence in their favour. 
On the way they had maintained their courage by trying 
to cheer one another, but as they had entered this novel 
refuge they were glad to drop on the first seat that pre¬ 
sented itself. Lady Scarlett stretched her legs on one 
long-saddle and her husband did likewise on another. There 
were several in the cave. All had apparently been roughly 
but strongly knocked together out of rough-sawn wood, 
and a coverlet on the back of each suggested that by day 
it was a seat, by night a bed. Sir John had not reclined 
very long before he began to recognise. that in addition 
to being tired and leg weary, worn out in body and depressed 
in spirit, he was assailed by pangs of hunger. He seized 
one of the jugs, but did not taste the beer, as his nose told 
him how stale it was, as though it had stood there for 
hours, perhaps for days. 

We will leave that for the guest it was meant for,” he said 
to Lady Scarlett, but she was so done out that she had im¬ 
mediately fallen into a half-conscious doze and only murmured 
an unintelligible reply. Her plight renewed his energy. 
231 


232 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

66 1 suppose I must have eaten double my share of 
the eatables we carried,” he muttered and roused himself 
to see what could be done for her. 

“ Only a cannibal could eat that,” he soliloquised, 
pointing to the beef on the plates, large in quantity, but 
coarse and under-cooked and buttressed by heaps of pickled 
red cabbage. 

Then he looked round and especially into the corners 
and recesses, and to his joy found the place provisioned 
like a castle for a siege. At the time he was too intent 
to draw inferences, but later on he recalled the rumour 
that illicit distillers lived like fighting cocks. Even his 
concentration on the task of finding something his wife 
could eat did not prevent him from giving a start of surprise 
and pleasure when looking round for means to cook 
some eggs, he discovered several oil cooking-stoves and a 
liberal supply of oil. Then he recalled how often in his 
experience on the Bench smoke had betrayed the illicit 
distillery. On a moor north of this one it had been noticed 
by the officers of the law that what was apparently a rabbit- 
hole had a coating of soot on it, and prompt investigation 
had shown that the old rabbit-hole was in reality a chimney 
for the still-room of a shebeen. In another case some 
pieces of coal dropped on the turf led to a discovery of the 
still. The inhabitants of this den had taken care not to 
betray themselves in such ways. Sir John lost no time in 
getting one of the oil-stoves lighted, and while a dish of 
eggs and bacon was being cooked on it he took occasion to 
drink a jug of excellent beer from a newly tapped cask. It 
made him feel like a giant refreshed. 

In a very short time his wife, having struggled against 
the lethargy v following over-exertion, found tea, bacon and 
eggs awaiting her. When she finished eating, she lay back 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 233 

and fell into a sound and refreshing sleep, and Sir John 
followed her example, after making a more substantial 
meal of cold meat, cheese, bread and many draughts of ale. 

They were not left long to themselves. On the fourth 
morning after their arrival, Sir John had risen while it was 
still dark and stolen out with his gun. He and his wife, 
unaccustomed to live entirely on salt and tinned food, had 
already begun to long for a change. Game, both furred 
and feathered, abounded. During the night he had heard 
a strong wind start to blow and it showed no sign of dropping 
in the morning. It appeared to him, therefore, that he 
might venture a shot without much risk of its being heard 
as the wind would carry away the sound. He was a man 
of active temperament who had all his life been devoted 
to field sports and was at heart not ill-pleased to have the 
excuse of an empty larder for indulging his love of shooting. 

Just across a depression scarcely deep or large enough 
to be called a valley, there was a young wood of Scotch fir 
or spruce—he had not been near enough to determine 
which, and he judged that as the trees did not look more 
than from six to eight feet high, the plantation would 
afford him sufficient concealment, and was full of game. 
Day had begun to break when he got to it, and he was 
not long in securing as large a bag as he desired. 

He stopped reluctantly, for he loved shooting, but 
as he counted his bag which contained two cock pheasants, 
a hare and a brace of partridges as well as a number of 
rabbits, he felt he had killed enough when there was no one 
to whom he could give any surplus. 

Before starting homewards he received a surprise. 
Emerging from an older and more distant plantation and 
coming in his direction trudged a party of four men. At 
a distance they looked like labourers going to work, dragging 


234 ™ COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

one lazy leg after the other. As they drew closer he saw 
their stubbly and unwashed faces, their torn clothes, and 
their general seediness. He was at first afraid they might 
be the shebeeners returning after a night of riot and pillage. 
They had certainly slept in their clothes and most likely 
after a drinking bout. 

He was silently waiting till they were past, and they 
too were as silent as ghosts, even their heavy feet falling 
noiselessly on the rain-drenched ground. But when they 
came near, which they did without seeing him, he noticed 
that their dress was good though neglected and that their 
eyes were sunken and their cheeks hollow. As to their 
expression, it was that of stoics who had come through 
hell, or, in simple words, men of the best English blood, 
who in desperate peril, were braced to meet with courage 
whatever ills awaited them. 

Sir John came out of the wood and stood in front 
of them, his gun on his shoulder. His appearance surprised 
but did not frighten them. A hard glint came into their 
eyes which proclaimed that enfeebled or not they could 
make a fight of it, but when he questioned them with the 
single word “ Escaped ? ” and smiled at the signs of fight, 
they merely nodded their heads and said “ Yes.” 

“ What are you looking for ? ” Sir John asked. 

“ A shebeen,” was the reply, as if the speaker could 
scarcely find strength to form the syllables. 

“ Come along then,” he said, as if the answer had been 
exactly what he expected, “ and do not talk if you are too 
tired.” 

Lady Scarlett had come out of the cavern intending 
to run and meet her husband and tell him that she had 
breakfast hot and ready, but when she saw the strangers 
and noticed the slow pace at which they marched, she 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 235 

divined what they were more quickly than he had done, 
and rushing back had tea ready for all before they entered. 

She gave orders in her clear young voice which they 
obeyed like children. They were not to take at present 
more than a little tea and bread and butter. After that 
they were to lie down and sleep till they were awakened, 
when they could wash if they felt that would be refreshing. 
Meantime, she would have something more substantial for 
them. Slowly the travellers drank their tea and then 
withdrew to an adjacent apartment where they each dropped 
on an improvised bed of sacks piled one on top of another. 
Of sacks there appeared to be no end in the place. 

Lady Scarlett used to delight in repeating this part 
of the story. Youth and love are naturally lighthearted, 
and she and her husband for a moment deemed their own 
misfortunes trifling as compared with such horrors as had 
aged their visitors before their time. The pleasure to 
them to be able to succour others took them out of their 
own misery. It was clear that they should get a meal 
ready immediately. What it should be might have led 
to much argument, but for the fact that they had no time 
to spare. She, who had not hitherto had much practical 
experience, was for cooking all the game at once, pheasants, 
rabbits and hare in one big pot, but as an old campaigner 
Sir John knew better than that. He ruled the pheasants 
out because they would have to be plucked and trussed, 
and besides, they needed hanging, so did the hare. There¬ 
fore, stewed rabbit must be the choice. If you think that 
Lady Scarlett was deeply impressed by this knowledge and 
decision, it must be because you forget her sex, but while 
she was summoning up a hundred arguments to show 
that hers was the right Gipsy way, he had retired with 
the rabbits to a secret place whence he emerged in an 


236 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

incredibly short space of time with the animals skinned, 
cleaned, cut up and ready for the pot. Next remarking 
that the keeper’s wife used to say that “ rabbits were fine 
eating but wanted a lot of kitchen,” he cut slices of bacon 
and collected onions and carrots to make the stew appetising. 

“ All that remains,” he now declared with the air of a 
cook, “ is to let it gently simmer.” At the same time he 
adjured her to make a pudding, “ and then you have a 
lunch you might set before a king.” 

She obeyed him with a mixture of pride and petulance, 
and the result came out near enough to plan to satisfy all 
concerned. 

Their light-heartedness sprang from ignorance of the 
full extent of the catastrophe and their own comparatively 
easy escape. Before the cookery had well got under weigh, 
human voices began to be heard from the adjacent room 
in which the guests were sleeping. It had already become 
evident from the sounds of restlessness that excitement 
had prevented sleep from closing their weary eyes at once. 
Yet in a while, fatigue seemed to have gained the victory, 
and all became quiet save for their heavy breathing which 
grew more and more troubled until it ended in a kind of 
clamour. Each of the four sleepers began talking in his 
sleep without addressing his companions, of whose existence 
indeed he had become ignorant. The words were not 
intelligible, but the accents expressed every shade and 
aspect of raging emotion—above all despair, which seemed 
in the voice of one a wail of endless anguish, of another, 
defiance hurled at death itself. 

“ What a time they must have come through ! ” said 
Sir John. “ I hate listening. Come with me and look 
for wine to give them—it was always rumoured that the 
smugglers bartered some of their whisky for French Burgundy 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 237 

which they sold quite openly in the neighbourhood. If 
there is any decent wine, it will be better than whisky 
for men in that condition.” 

“ You hunt for wine,” said his wife, “ and I will get 
the plates and dishes ready,” and she hurried off to conceal 
the tears which were welling down her cheeks. 

Sir John hastened away as if in the most transcendent 
hurry, but forgot his errand and sat down and smoked for 
three-quarters of an hour at a kind of t look-out 5 which 
already had become a favourite resort where he could puff 
at his pipe and feast his eyes on the dale, the brown grass 
on the hill and the dark spinneys. He did not apostrophise 
them this time, but muttered more than once : “ These 
chaps must have had a damned thin time ! ” 

He had done that a thousand times before he gave 
a thought to the wine. Yet he had a plentiful supply on 
the table when the four men entered for lunch. 

When it came to the meal, each was perfectly self- 
possessed, and if they had been actors speaking after full 
rehearsal they could not have filled their parts more per¬ 
fectly. Sir John amused them with his story of the wine 
hunt, saying he had often heard that the establishment 
they were in was run by a company, a non-liability company, 
and that it made a great share of its profits by bartering 
whisky for wine, which it worked off at certain country 
inns it owned, “ and you know the prices country inns charge 
for wine! ” He declared that he had sat for an hour drinking 
coffee with a damp towel round his head before he could 
hit upon the place it was stored in. 

Lady Scarlett displayed an aptitude for humour equally 
simple, explaining with great emphasis that it was entirely 
her husband’s blame that they had stewed rabbit foisted 
upon them. She would much rather have stewed the 


238 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

entire contents of the bag in one pot—indeed, she would 
have preferred to send him to shoot other things to add 
to the stew, such as wood-pigeons, woodcock, snipe and a 
hedgehog. Your true Gipsy never thought a stew com¬ 
plete unless it contained a hedgehog. 

All this well-intended pleasantry led to an unexpected 
result. To the four new fugitives it was delightful. Greatly 
cheered by it and also by “ the frolic wine ” which came 
as a novel surprise, the most distinguished-looking of them 
asked if it would be boring if he gave an account of himself. 
He spoke in a tone as easy as that of Lady Scarlett herself, 
and she without giving the matter a thought, said that 
she would love it. 

Before that, a fear had entered her mind that some 
fearful sight or suffering had endangered their reason, 
but the suspicion vanished when they were seen comporting 
themselves in exactly the same style as their host and hostess. 
It went all very well at first. 

The speaker with a smile explained that his name was 
Munro, and he was Chemistry Professor at Armstrong Col¬ 
lege, Newcastle. He and his assistant and friend Andrew 
Frazer, had been engaged on an experiment, when they 
were interrupted by the sound of a tremendous uproar, and 
almost immediately afterwards he saw from a little window 
a number of black soldiers making for the door of his 
laboratory. 

“ It happened that the stuff I was engaged on had 
a most fearful stink, so I opened the door and let it out.” 
He went on with a laugh to tell how the cryPoison Gas! ” 
was raised and produced a panic that gave him and his 
assistant time to get away by a little side door. Whether 
assumed or not, the touch of gaiety was ephemeral. He 
had a small car for running to and fro between the college 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 239 

and his home on the North Tyne a few miles from 
Hexham. Of what must have been a very perilous journey 
he told little ; what he did say in a dry hard voice was that 
“ they,” meaning his young wife, were dead. Had it not 
been that Andrew took charge and carried him away among 
the wild fells, he would have shared their fate. 

Here he fell in with Mr. Matthewson, a squire of 
Durham, and his factotum, Messor. He went on in a 
dull, mechanical voice that nevertheless made them see 
the throes of England as though they were painted with 
the blood of the slain. 

Lady Scarlett, weeping, implored him not to go on, 
but he did not seem to hear her or indeed to realise that 
there was anybody but himself in the room, and his narrative 
became unintelligible. He made a series of ejaculations 
by which his companions alone could follow the history. 
Even this was too much for him. In a dull and inexpressibly 
desolate tone he rambled on about taking refuge in a 
wood, then stopped abruptly, and making a desperate 
effort at self-restraint, he said something about feeling ill 
and left the room, Andrew Frazer following him. 

The Durham Squire made a rather uncouth but not 
unkind attempt at apology, to which Lady Scarlett replied : 
“ I will never forgive myself for this; he ought at all costs 
to have been spared.” 

Yet it set her mind working, and, as will be seen, she 
devised a remedy for Professor Munro that became of the 
utmost value to the Settlement as well as the band of 
fugitives who found refuge and concealment in a place 
which until then had served no other purpose than that 
of manufacturing and disseminating a brand of whisky 
on which no duty was paid. 


XXV 

The Scarlett MS. continued. Story of a desperate 
fight 

L ADY SCARLETT was well pleased with the result 
of her experiment, and made the most of such 
amusing little incidents as occurred. When Messor, the 
Squire’s factotum, announced one day at the mid-day meal, 
with an air at once excited and superior, that he had dis¬ 
covered how the smugglers had supplied themselves with 
fresh eggs, she begged him in a gently ironical tone to 
explain the plan to the company. 

“Oh, it’s very simple,” he replied, “just at the edge 
of the cave and lighted from a crack in the rock they have 
fixed up a wooden shed full of straw and chaff. A sack of 
corn hangs in the middle, and out of a small slit the grains 
dribble on to the litter with which it is mixed by the 
scratchings of the birds who thus make for themselves the 
pleasure of unscratching it. Once a month I should think 
the sack wants filling, and there’s a little gate for letting them 
out when they need greenstuff.” 

“ That’s a topping plan,” said Sir John, and the rest 
joined in his admiration. “ But how did you discover it ? ” 
he asked Messor, “ and what are you giggling at ? ” he 
enquired of his wife. 

“ Only laughing at you and men generally,” she said. 
240 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 241 

u Here we have been shut up in this cave for more than a 
week, cut off from the world as completely as Robinson 
Crusoe on his island, and every morning every one has had 
his fresh egg or eggs for breakfast just as if he were at home. 
Not one asked where the eggs came from ; you just ate 
them and said nothing. Then one of you discovered my 
little secret, and you are struck dumb with wonder. 
Such are the ways of the creature called Man. I 
think after to-day’s work is done we must try a way 
to improve your wits. What do you say to a little 
competition ? Let it be to define what work really means 
and is, the said definition not to exceed fifty words in 
length.” 

They had nothing better to do, and after much pre¬ 
liminary chatter, accepted the idea enthusiastically, though 
Sir John cast more than one inquiring gaze at his wife 
which seemed not innocent of suspicion. 

“ Are you coming in, Sally ? ” he asked. 

“ No,” she replied, <c or rather, yes. I will read your 
answers first and then deliver my own with notes and 
illustrations, and please remember, no collusion.” 

At the evening meal she asked them to put their replies 
in the crown of a hat, and then with eyes averted she took 
one out. It was Professor Munro’s, and read rather too 
stately and dignified for a mere game : “ Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do, do it with thy might—that is the sum 
total of work.” 

Sarah read it out in a staccato voice and then counted 
the words in the same tone : “ One, two, three, four, five, 
six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, 
fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen; Professor Munro, 
eighteen words.” 

The next she took out was that of the Squire; it was 


242 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

shorter still: “ ‘ Work is losing no time.’ Squire Matthew- 
son, one, two, three, four, five words.” 

Sir John’s came next. “ 4 Play is exercise for fun; 
work is exercise for profit.’ Ten words,” said his wife, 
and went on to the next which was Messor’s. “ God’s 
curse on humanity,” she read. “ Four words,” said Lady 
Scarlett. “ Making shift,” wrote the Professor’s assistant. 
“ Two words, and the prize for brevity.” 

The company laughed and then cried : “ Now it is 
your turn; read out your own.” Lady Scarlett complied 
with a smile. 

“ I have no wit, no clever wit at any rate,” she began. 
<c Mine is a housewife’s definition and its point lies in the 
application. 4 Work is putting things in their places.’ 
It is very simple, but will bear thinking about. Our friend, 
Messor, ought to be one of the first to see its application. 
He deals with manure—a noisome, filthy substance when 
out of place, but if he digs it into the earth, it sustains and 
nourishes the vegetables we require. He has put it in its 
place. The rabbit is out of place when eating cabbages. 
My husband enjoys both play and work when he shoots 
the rabbits. Professor Munro knows that the elements out 
of which gunpowder is made exist in the wrong place. 
When he collects and combines them in gunpowder, he 
has put them in a right place because it is useful and may 
become necessary to us. Squire Matthewson tells me that 
one of his hobbies is carpentering. I notice a great deal 
of wood lying about in the shape of planks and boxes that 
are only in the way when we need chairs and tables and 
furniture of all kinds. That is a hint for him to put the 
wood in the right place. There is other important work 
for all to be done if we are to survive. It is to make ex¬ 
peditions to the ruined towns and villages to collect such 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 243 

necessaries as have escaped destruction, particularly seeds, 
potatoes, plants for the garden, clothes for our backs and 
shoes for our feet. There is danger in exploration, but 
probably not so much as there was a week ago. I would 
not have touched on the subject had I not made up my mind 
to share in the danger. Sudden death is preferable to the 
lingering torture of famine which is urgently threatening.” 

She had given a very grave hint, but the conditions 
she described were all understood and the simple little 
speech was applauded and a dozen methods of starting 
suggested. When a suitable opening occurred, it was she 
again who pointed out the first practical thing to do. 

“ It is in all your minds,” she said, <e that there is a 
nuisance over there to be removed.” She pointed to the 
east where smoke still was rising from a smouldering village, 
and all had noticed, though they did not like to mention 
it before her, that when the wind blew from that direction, 
it carried a sickly odour. 

They were out with spades and shovels at the next 
morning’s dawn and came back very weary, but it was agreed 
that what they saw and what they did should never be 
spoken about or even alluded to. It was silently classified 
with what the Professor had seen in the wood and other 
horrors that might be talked about when callous, gibbering 
age came upon them, but not now. 

It was considered advisable to put in the chronicle an 
exact account of Lady Scarlett’s innocent artifices, because 
in the after time there grew up a legend that she had made 
the first step towards a reconstruction of society. She 
disclaimed the credit for having done anything of the kind, 
and wished it to be known that such a far-reaching thought 
was far beyond her capacity. “ It was hand-to-mouth with 
me,” she said. “ Every morning I tried to think of 


244 T HE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

something that would take our minds away from horrid 
thoughts.” 

Nevertheless, it became the beginning of a movement. 
When they began providing for a future, they also began 
to believe there was a future. 

Messor took upon himself the gardening side and 
rummaged not in vain for seeds and plants, rakes and hoes. 
In a little ruined town he found a nursery almost intact 
and a seedsman’s shop attached to it. The nursery, being 
stocked mostly with fruit trees and garden shrubs was of 
no use to them ; nor were the flower seeds; but the vegetable 
seeds were invaluable. 

The Squire, as Mr. Matthewson got to be named, 
distinguished himself by the patience with which he wooed 
the confidence of a horse. Most of the horses had been 
either captured or killed by the invaders, but here and 
there one was found leading the life of a wild animal, his 
old friendship for man changed to shyness and distrust. 
If the foreign soldier failed to capture a horse, his orders 
were apparently either to kill the animal or inflict the 
greatest possible injury, with a view to making him value¬ 
less henceforth. The discovery of a horse that haunted the 
neighbourhood was an event so rare that it led to an attempt 
at capture. It was a proud moment for the Squire when, 
after laying corn in the haunts of this wild steed and giving 
it to him in a nosebag, he eventually was able to lead him 
by the forelock into a little stable he had made near the 
hen coops. Many weeks were spent over this achievement, 
and months passed before the horse was turned into a regular 
companion. 

Sir John searched with equal diligence for guns, but 
they belonged to a type of article that the enemy had 
taken great pains to carry away or render useless. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 245 

Professor Munro’s care was for cartridges. He met 
with the same difficulty, and grew tired of useless searching, 
preferring to stay in the cave. So deep is the habit of 
suspicion rooted in humanity that signs of its existence 
began to be exhibited even in the little company. It 
began to be hinted and whispered that Munro was showing 
the white feather and remained in cover to avoid danger. 
Everybody, even Lady Scarlett, heard the accusation 
which was passed from one to another in strict confidence. 
Madam was indignant that any one should entertain the 
slightest trace of distrust, yet she could not deny the reluc¬ 
tance to go out that Munro took no pains to conceal. His 
eagerness to take advantage of every excuse for remaining 
at home was certainly open to misunderstanding. She 
could not explain and was too loyal to think any ill of him 
or even accept her husband’s bluff but not unkind ex¬ 
planation : 

“ Old Munro’s all right,’’ he would say. “ Like you, 
he thinks that work, to put it short, is shifting things, 
but he would do his shifting inside rather than outside. 
I’ll never forget how he broke down like a man going off 
his dot at the very mention of a certain wood. He either 
got a doing there himself, or some of his friends had to go 
through with it. I don’t wonder he is a bit shaky about 
showing again in the open. We have had some narrow 
shaves you know.” 

She made no reply to talk like this. Her husband 
meant no wrong, but it was impossible for her to believe 
that the Professor feared a narrow shave. It came about 
one day that his courage was put to a sharp test. He was 
more unwilling than usual to go with them, although they 
had made a real find. 

In a town about seven miles away they had discovered 

R 


246 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

an ironmonger’s shop in which, by some unknown fortune, 
nothing had been destroyed, and it was stocked with the 
very things they stood in need of—nails, hammers, choppers, 
axes, saws and the like. As they were examining this 
treasure trove they heard the distant but not unfamiliar 
sound of people flying for their lives and some of them 
shrieking for fear. Whoever they were they avoided the 
ruined town and could be dimly seen running towards a 
cover of tall broom. Panic very nearly seized the members 
of the expedition, but fortunately, Messor had a very cool 
head and pointed out that the chase was going in a direction 
opposite to that which led back to the shebeen. At his 
suggestion they turned on their tracks and reached the 
cave unperceived and not minding the tiredness caused 
by a long run. 

They were by this time inured to such risks and made 
ready to start again next day, as it was very uncommon 
for the enemy to keep in the district two days running. 
On this occasion it was soon discovered that the rule had 
not been followed. Scarcely had they left before the 
sight of a distant flight of aeroplanes filled their minds with 
fear and uncertainty. Had the troop been foiled the 
night before, and were now resuming the hunt ? Or 
could it be that they had got wind of the shebeen and its 
tenants ? They waited for a while in anxiety and then, to 
use the squire’s fox-hunting expression, <c went to ground.” 

As soon as they got inside they sought for Munro, 
and duly found him with a very elated and energetic 
expression shovelling away the last remains of a mound of 
earth. No one at the moment heeded his occupation, 
but they told him of the danger. He apprehended the 
position in a moment. 

“ Someone must go out and watch, so that they do 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


24 7 

not take us without warning,” he said quickly. “ I haven’t 
been doing my share in your excursions lately, so it is my 
turn to go on duty.” 

“ This is an extra turn and the odds are a hundred to 
one against the man that takes it. I vote that we draw 
lots,” said Sir John. 

“ Nonsense,” replied Munro, “ the odds were against 
you last night and I was out of it. The turn is mine and 
I take it.” 

He started without further argument. On getting 
outside he examined the situation as composedly as if he 
were out to stalk deer. The last of the aeroplanes was 
dropping on the sward adjoining one of the fir plantations. 
It was obvious that the only feasible place from which to 
get a view was where a line of jutting rocks faced the hollow 
and woodland beyond it. Without hesitation he ran as 
fast as he could over the ground wheie he could not possibly 
be in sight, then crawled slowly on hands and knees till 
he got behind the crags and chose a place where there was 
an interstice between two perpendicular pieces of rock. 
Holding a bunch of withered heather in front of his face, 
he looked down on a remarkable spectacle—the end of 
some furious battle which must have been fought miles 
away. Munro judged and most likely he was right that a 
brave contingent of the defeated were making a last and 
hopeless stand. 

Sharpshooters were hurriedly taking their places at 
every point where those who had taken cover in a wood 
if they emerged must face open country. About a hundred 
soldiers were concentrated at a place where the people 
in the plantation would need only a rush of fifty yards to 
attain a rougher and larger stretch of woodland. It was 
their only chance, and Munro from his superior position 


248 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

judged that they meant to take it. He counted twenty- 
five men each crouching in the undergrowth where they 
could not possibly be seen by any who stood on the same 
level. 

Shots were fired into the wood at random, but evoked 
no reply. If those within had firearms they did not use them. 

No time was wasted by the enemy. A contingent of 
about a dozen men were sent into the wood to bomb the 
inmates, but the undergrowth was so thick that in trying to 
penetrate it they became separated and not one came out 
alive. Each was pulled down and slain. As soon as this was 
realised, an aeroplane began to rise and Munro’s heart 
seemed to stop beating as he saw the besiegers evidently in 
obedience to a signal or command, withdraw till they 
surrounded the wood in a wider circle. It was clear that 
they were getting out of the way of the explosives which 
would presently be dropped from the air. 

There appeared to be no hope for the brave and 
desperate band. Yet they seemed to be at least as cool 
and resolute as their enemies. The corner of the wood 
had a north point and a south point. After what appeared 
to be a brief consultation, the largest part of the company 
wormed themselves to the very edge of the southern point, 
while, with much less attempt at concealment, the others 
moved to the north point. In a moment or two these hid no 
longer, but with loud battle yells and a fusillade that laid 
several of the enemy low, they made a dash at the opening. 
Probably they achieved their object. It was a feint to 
draw the enemy away from the main body and everyone 
who took part in it must have known that he was going to 
his death. Only four of them got far enough through to 
get to hand-to-hand grips. Great stalwart men animated 
with the fury of despair, it seemed for a brief moment as 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 249 

though they would achieve the impossible. Those opposed 
to them, unable to use their firearms, became huddled 
together, while three with bayonets and one giant who 
towered above the others felling men to right and left, 
drove them back. It was a glorious feat of arms that might 
have succeeded in the heroic days when hero faced hero 
armed with sword and lance, but modern weapons made 
all the difference, and Munro noticed that a single little 
man, who appeared to be a commander, shot the three 
who used the bayonet with his revolver and would have 
served the giant in the same way had the latter not succeeded 
in dashing his brains out with the butt of his gun, the last 
stroke he was to deliver, for a crowd bore him to the ground 
hanging on to him like hounds to a wild boar. 

The battle lasted only a few minutes, yet it gave time 
enough for the main body to escape. They emerged 
from the wood silently and started to run across the open 
space while attention was concentrated on the furious 
encounter. Before being noticed they had covered half 
the distance and the few shots at them went wide. For 
the time, at any rate, they were safe. It would be easier 
to baffle pursuers in a great wood than in a few acres planted 
originally as a pheasant cover. 

Munro now began to think of his own position. He 
looked ironically at his rifle, thought of what little use 
it had been, and wondered if his friends would have been 
able to imagine what had been going on. They must 
have heard the report of firearms and also the savage yelling 
that prevailed during the fight. It was unlikely that any 
one had detected his presence as a spectator, and he calcu¬ 
lated that even the airmen could not have made him out, 
for he was ensconced in a rift between two rocks so that 
only the dark hair on the top of his head was exposed, and 


250 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

it approximated closely to the colour of the rocks. So 
there was no need to hurry, especially as the coloured 
soldiers were on the move. Some were told off to watch 
the edges of the big wood and prevent any escape from it; 
others had collected their few wounded and were taking 
them away in aeroplanes, and would probably return with 
reinforcements. 

In a few moments or so it seemed that the bloody 
pageant faded away. Not a sound rose either from the 
little wood or the big one except the raucous cries of a 
few carrion crows and magpies that were cautiously hovering 
round the dead wondering if their enemy Man had left a 
feast behind or was only beguiling them into one of his 
devilish traps. They were none of your unsophisticated 
dwellers in the wilderness, but creatures made wary by 
contact with the treachery and cunning which from their 
point of view were the leading characteristics of civilised man. 

Diminishing, till they appeared only as spots, the 
aeroplanes might have been taken for birds winging their 
way to another shore. Munro gazed vacantly as in the old 
days he often had done after a pack of foxhounds had inter¬ 
rupted his open-air thoughts. Before his mind could be 
fully withdrawn from the intellectual atmosphere in which 
it dwelt, the yelping dogs had settled to a deadly chase, the 
huntsman’s horn was silent, the whipper-in no longer 
cracked his whip. In front was a usual English scene, 
a woodland covert, a bit of park, a landscape of pasture and 
ploughland, square fields enclosed between dark hedgerows, 
neat and uniform, save where a sentinel tree waved its dark 
arms. So did he imagine that what he had witnessed 
must have been a dreadful nightmare. He might have 
convinced himself that it was so except for the figures 
of men lying on the turf, and lying very still. 


XXVI 


The Scarlett MS. continued. The tragedy of a horse 

'\X 7 TTHIN the cave there had been much pertur- 

* * bation. The Squire said that he had never 
before understood what the rabbits in the burrow felt 
when they knew that the two-legged fiends were plotting 
their ruin. He likened certain well-concealed orifices 
the smugglers had cut out for peep-holes or flight in emer¬ 
gency to the bolt holes from the city of the rabbit. He 
drew a picture of the ferret as they saw him, a bigger, 
fiercer foe than the stoat; he made a soliloquy for the 
wise old buck considering which tunnel was likely to bring 
him to the least dangerous opening and taking carefully 
into account the dangers to be faced, the guns, dogs, nets 
and man’s other infernal contrivances for doing in the 
harmless and playful rabbit. 

It was creditable to him that he drew smiles from 
them when the wells from which tears came were full to 
overflowing, especially when he brought Munro into the 
picture. 

The arrival of the subject of this sketch cut short the 
Squire’s whimsical essay which might have been soothing 
if it had not been so obviously more the outcome of appre¬ 
hension than of fancy. Relief at Munro’s information that 
danger had passed for the moment would have been joyous 
251 


252 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

but for the evidence that the enemy was as unrelenting as 
ever, and for grief over the fate of the devoted band who 
had given up their lives to save the lives of their comrades. 
They could talk of nothing else till they became too tired 
to continue. 

It was not until several days had passed that the entire 
company sought out Munro in the middle of the forenoon 
to apologise for having entertained the slightest shadow 
of a suspicion of his courage and of a readiness for duty. He 
was at first unable to grasp the point, and when at last it 
dawned on him, first there came a slight flush to his cheek, 
and then he laughed outright. 

“ Yes,” he said at last, in the tone of a man thinking and 
talking to himself, “ I did not take that into account— 
desperate men at the hazard of the dice—yes, yes, I have 
a little word to say, but will keep it. A far more important 
point is, shall we stick it here or go out and take our chance ? ” 

They had talked of nothing else since the fight in the 
wood. Evidently something was astir, as aeroplanes had 
been going and coming every day, almost every hour, 
many of them coming right over their heads. Munro 
had so far been left out of the council; he was the sort of 
man who is out of place in a common argument, but one 
whose judgment is generally accepted as final in the end. 
While they set forth arguments on one side and the other, 
he listened without doing more than put a question here 
and there. Finally he summed it up in a few words: 

“ You think that the enemy is beginning to get too 
much with us, probably searching high and low in his 
mission to exterminate our race. He is not likely to quit 
the district as long as there’s a living Englishman in it, 
and possibly he has marked this place down for destruction 
when he thinks it will be full of fugitives. It is only a guess 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 253 

on your part and too clever.” He stopped, hesitated and 
thought, then abruptly asked the Squire how old he thought 
the cave was. 

“ Not two hundred years,” was the answer. a It is 
just about that time since the fearful duties on intoxicating 
drink led to the revival of illicit distilling, shebeening and 
smuggling. It’s likely that they dug it out then.” 

“ What splendid diggers they must have been,” ex¬ 
claimed Munro, and if ironically, the irony was hidden. 
6i Look at the dimensions of it, the corridors, galleries, 
divisions. If the British labourer turned distiller accom¬ 
plished all this in half a century, he must be a greater devil to 
work than ever we imagined in the good old days of ca’ canny.” 

They looked round and thought themselves fools for 
not having thought of this. The Squire alone made a 
feeble attempt to justify his opinion. 

“ I don’t know who inhabited it if they did not; ” he 
argued, “ look at the plant, the still, the kegs ! ” 

“ Yes, yes,” interrupted the Professor, “ they carried 
on their trade in it, but the cave probably existed before 
the human race did. You can see how they have enlarged 
it a little and adapted it to their purpose. It is not really 
my job, but I was investigating all this when you thought 
I was playing the old soldier. Come and look at the earth 
I shifted,” and he led them along a gallery to it. “ Now 
look at the relics,” and he lifted a cloth and showed them 
two or three articles with the dust not rubbed off them. 

Matthewson clutched at them in triumph. “ Primitive 
man indeed ! ” he exclaimed in scorn. ct That’s what the 
ancient villager called a gallows button, and we a common 
trouser button, and that a ‘ bacca ’ box for twist, and 
that-” 

“ Enough,” broke in Munro, “to show that labourers 


254 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

of to-day made the mound and therefore enough to make 
me shift it back again to see what had been covered up.” 

He showed as he found them, worked flints, a hammer¬ 
head, the antlers of a deer and a heap of bones. 

“ Let them remain as they are,” he said. “ In days to 
come they may be re-discovered by a better anthropologist 
than I am. The immediate point is that this natural cave 
must have been used for concealment thousands of years 
ago and then remained unused probably for centuries till a 
few law-breakers probably came upon it by accident and 
found it suitable for their purpose. No other human being 
dreamt of its existence. I have examined the outside most 
carefully and not found a clue that would guide any one to 
it. Aircraft have gone over within a few feet of the ground 
and seen nothing. My advice is to stick to it unless any 
one can suggest a more secure refuge.” 

Needless to say, his point was carried. The little 
company remained there till they got a message from the 
Settlement, and it is largely due to them that so much 
civilisation was preserved intact. For about six weeks the 
district was harried at intervals by bodies of soldiers, a 
few of whom came from the air, but by far the greater pro¬ 
portion on foot or on horseback. Many who had gone 
into hiding were discovered and slain. Bands who moved 
about were chased as if they were wild animals, and what 
remained of houses and property was mostly destroyed, 
but the existence of the cave was unsuspected even though 
regiments passed over it marching to wild oriental music 
or singing words and tunes unintelligible to the white 
people below, who, while they listened, crouched as men 
crouch under the scourge. 

During these weeks they scarcely ventured out, and 
it was fortunate for them that a good store of victuals 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 255 

had been accumulated within. They began to think that 
the work of extermination must have been nearly complete, 
but something happened to create uneasiness about a new 
danger. It was the Durham Squire who had the first 
warning. As long as the district was disturbed, he had 
found it difficult to exercise the horse which has already 
been mentioned, and he had trained it to go out for a 
canter by itself in the dusk when there did not appear to be 
any special cause for alarm. He released it before feeding 
time, so that, as we may say, it was pulled back by the 
nosebag. One day he had done this earlier than usual, 
and then he walked to the top of the cliff where it was 
possible to see without being seen. 

And what he saw gave the first intimation of a new 
peril. He looked down on a short lane that led to a paddock 
towards which the horse, which had kicked up its heels and 
gone off at a canter when set free, was now advancing 
slowly. In the absence of traffic, the little ears of grass 
had started to invade the roadway, and the horse bent its 
long neck to crop a morsel, and then go on again. Every 
now and then, as if glorying in the freedom to use its limbs, 
it would fling out its heels and start on a little run which 
would be stopped short when a tuft of fresh grass met his 
eye. Matthewson, after watching the horse for a minute 
or two, happened to glance further along the winding road. 
His eye was caught at once by a band of pedestrians. He 
had picked up a field-glass in his search of the devastated 
villages and by its use made out some of the individual 
forms in an extraordinary company. 

They looked like an army of beggars, ragged, dirty and 
unshaven. No firearms were to be seen, but each carried 
some sort of weapon. Clubs that might have been torn 
from the nearest tree were the most common. Farm 


256 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

implements like forks and spades were favourite weapons, and 
not quite so wicked-looking as a scythe or even a sickle 
wrapped to the end of a stout pole. The weapons in fact 
were such as peasants used at Sedgemoor and Russian 
peasants in the Carpathians. Matthewson regretted not 
having brought out his gun, for he said to himself they did 
not look like making two bites of a cherry. When the 
horse, which had been nibbling for a few minutes, began 
to trot towards them their alarm was patent. 

At first it took an angry form. They grasped their 
clubs and crowded together like wasps when their nest is 
threatened. Then, as the patter of the horse’s feet could 
be heard coming along the lane, prudence got the better of 
courage, and in a twinkling the whole of the ruffianly band 
passed out of sight. 

The horse, unalarmed, pursued its leisurely way, but 
Matthewson was not slow to notice that several men, 
apparently having discovered there was no rider, had pushed 
forward, and by cutting across the field where the next long 
winding occurred, had got well in front of the horse. At the 
same time, others had planned to intercept its return by 
placing the limbs of a tree that had been crashed to bits at 
some time during the war, in a heap across the road. 

“ Stealing is one thing, torturing another; they’ll 
break his legs,” said the agitated owner to himself, but 
he dared not interfere. 

Then a very savage hunt began. Lumps of rock 
hurled at him by howling demons made the poor horse 
turn and fly along the road like lightning, his speed acceler¬ 
ated every now and then by a well-directed stone from 
behind the wall, till at last when the obstacle was reached, 
there emerged round him a band of furies beating him 
with clubs, prodding with forks, hurling stones at his ribs 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 257 

till he dashed mad and blind at the obstacle, and, as was 
inevitable, came to the ground. With incredible swiftness 
the ruffians, who had evidently planned this, rushed in 
and managed in one way or another to secure and tie hi3 
legs, and in a second afterwards they had cut his throat 
and he was bleeding to death. 

Matthewson had watched the proceedings with dumb 
amazement. He was not imaginative and could see no 
reason for the act except on the assumption that he was 
watching the inmates, who, in the confusion of the time, 
had escaped from a lunatic asylum. This, however, was 
but a superficial and contemptuous expression. In his 
heart there surged a deep and passionate anger that made 
him rush back to his friends, seize his gun and implore them 
to take theirs so as to clear the countryside of what he 
called <£ a gang of blood-suckers.” He was almost too much 
beside himself with rage to give intelligible answers to the 
questions addressed to him, but enough was gathered for 
them to imagine the scene. Sir John and the others looked 
with dubious eyes at the vehement exhortation to be up 
and doing with their guns. Lady Scarlett wept silently. 
When the Squire perceived this, he was to some extent 
mollified, because he thought he had found a sympathiser, 
and implored her not <£ to take on so about the horse. It 
was sure to have come to an ill fate some time or another,” 
and generally poured the best commonplaces he could 
think of into her ear. 

He was more than surprised when Lady Scarlett looked 
up and said very frankly and simply : <c I was not thinking 
of your horse, though I do indeed pity the poor animal. 
He was the nicest and gentlest horse that I was ever near. 
Still, I did not think of him. My heart was moved on 
account of the men. Not many weeks ago I imagine each 


258 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

of them must have been living a useful and quiet life without 
any apprehension of the great calamity that has fallen on 
them. It is apparent to me that they have been driven mad 
by terrible hunger, and they have killed the horse to satisfy 
it. You speak of them being dirty and ragged and looking 
like footpads and ruffians, but that only tells me of the 
fearful life they must have been living the last few weeks, 
hiding by day and at night foraging a country that has 
been rapidly stripped of food and the other essentials of 
life. It seems to me that they call for pity and sympathy, 
and not for our anger.” 

The Squire was not a cruel and revengeful man, and 
became at once a convert to her way of thinking. 

“ What you say must be true,” he ejaculated, “ but 
to the mind of an ass like myself it would not have occurred 
if I turned it over for a month of Sundays. If what you 
say is true, there is, at any rate, no need for us to act, because 
the poor devils will get it in the neck soon enough.” 

It turned out that his prophecy was fulfilled more 
promptly than he expected. In those weeks there seemed 
to be always hovering far in the air one of those military 
birds of prey that resembled vultures in more ways than 
one, and when a crowd was gathered together there the 
vulture would be found. Within an hour or two, military 
forces were on the track of this band of broken men, and 
though the facts never can be known, it is, to say the least, 
very doubtful if any one of them survived. The incident 
is of importance only because it was the first warning that 
there were two sets of Englishmen who had survived the 
dangers of the catastrophe, and that one was in the wild 
and reverted to barbarism, while the other tried hard to 
keep the flag of civilisation flying and to live according 
to the moral standards of their ancestry. 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 259 

For three years the party had no other shelter. When 
on the last day of the first of these years they ventured on a 
little merrymaking, everybody felt as Messor did when, 
previous to drinking a general health to them from his 
brown jug, he remarked that he never thought any of 
them would come through it. 

Without rest or stoppage the enemy had pursued the 
grim work of extermination. Every few days there would 
appear in the neighbourhood one or two Englishmen whom 
flight and suffering had despoiled of the frank and manly 
characteristics by which the race used to be distinguished. 
From being continually hunted and starved with no hope 
of sustaining a fight, they had become furtive and cunning. 
Quick, and owing to their bare feet noiseless in movement, 
they were but pitiful shapes to eyes that watched from 
outlooks cunningly arranged by the smugglers of old. Famine 
was after them as well as inhuman foes. They were stalked 
and killed with a zest that told of race-hatred as well as a 
military command. 

By the end of the year it had become rare to see any 
of them, and it was evident that the patrols who at intervals 
swept over the district, found that their duties had become 
nominal. That could be followed by the unseen observers 
who watched them occasionally standing round two men 
sparring and wrestling. At times too, one man would back 
his horse against another’s and the pair would be matched 
against each other on the grassy pastures of the moor. 

The second year was notable and remembered for 
the flocks of small children that were seen from time to 
time. Sir John jotted down in a little note-book or diary 
he kept seven occasions on which companies of young 
children were seen. He thought it probable that they 
were scholars who had fled in terror when the schools were 


260 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


destroyed. They were thin, miserable-looking specimens 
of humanity. Four times he had been concealed close by 
while they rummaged for acorns and mast under the dead 
leaves of oak and elm. They paid no attention to the 
natural sounds made by animals or rain or wind, but at 
the tread of a human foot they fled to the nearest cover. 

On one occasion while he was hiding in a thicket, 
one of them chanced to enter. Sir John feigned to be 
asleep while he watched the boy with half-closed eyes. 
The boy uttered no word of alarm or surprise, but withdrew 
with footsteps as soft and silent as those of a kitten; nor 
did he give any audible warning to his companions, yet, 
when a moment after Sir John stepped forth from his place 
of concealment, they had all disappeared. He did not 
search for them. By this time the inhabitants of the cave 
had learned the great need for caution when any fugitive 
old or young, was in the neighbourhood, as the enemy was 
sure to follow hot on the track. 

In the third year dramatic surprises and encounters 
ceased to occur. They afterwards remembered it as the 
first time in which they could give attention to their little 
arts of husbandry. Previously, such efforts had been very 
irregular and consisted for the main part of sowing wheat, 
barley and oats in odd corners not too near their place of 
concealment. No important crops could be grown, and 
the best hoped for was a supply of fresh seed. Enough had 
been stored by the smugglers to meet their wants as far 
as food went. Also, they had planted potatoes, not in 
fields or gardens, and nowhere on a scale that would attract 
attention—just a dozen roots or so planted where they might 
have come up accidentally. There was not enough in any 
one place to attract attention amid the weeds that had 
now over-run the land. 


XXVII 


The Scarlett MS. concluded. They come to the end 

OF THEIR TROUBLES. The JOURNEY SOUTH 



ADY SCARLETT in the comparative freedom of 


' this year lost no opportunity of urging them to 
industry in their work, saying nothing of the example she 
had set even in the most troubled times. She might 
have had inward doubts, but outwardly her steadfast 
faith never flagged. Out of affection the others did 
as she wished, but they had not the same unswerving 
belief. They said nothing to one another, but as 
they ranged far and wide in the hope of picking up 
some of the common articles essential to existence, they 
felt very scared and depressed to notice the havoc made 
in what they used to consider the first country in the 


world. 


Hope had nearly fled from them, when in a sunny 
interlude of a showery April day the intimation came to 
them that the survivors of the war were gathering in the 
south of England. The message was brought by two men 
mounted on ponies. They were foreign-looking men, but 
that, no doubt, was due to their rough made clothes and 
their uncouth general appearance. They had very strong 
bass voices and were singing with the utmost gusto a song 
of the olden time : 


262 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


“ Where are the boys of the Old Brigade, 

Who fought with us side by side ? 

Shoulder to shoulder, and blade by blade, 

Fought till they fell and died ; 

Who so ready and undismayed ? 

Who so merry and true ? 

Where are the boys of the Old Brigade ? 

Where are the lads we knew ? 

“ Then steadily shoulder to shoulder, 

Steadily blade by blade ; 

Ready and strong, marching along 
Like the boys of the Old Brigade ; 

Then steadily shoulder to shoulder, 

Steadily blade by blade, 

Ready and strong, marching along 
Like the boys of the Old Brigade.” 

Some of the hearers were suspicious, but Lady Scarlett’s 
fine instinct made her divine at once what had happened. 
She told the writer of this memoir afterwards that it had 
always been her hope and opinion that something like this 
would happen, and often she had entertained herself by 
inventing the means that would be adopted to bring sur¬ 
vivors out of their hiding places. She made no hesitation, 
therefore, but rushed out in spite of all protest and eagerly 
shook hands with the newcomers. The whole party followed 
her example and very soon they were busy exchanging 
notes over a meal inside the shebeen. From that moment 
the whole time was devoted to arranging a long trek to the 
south. 

In spite of the high spirits and sense of relief engendered 
by the knowledge that the enemy had evacuated Britain, 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 263 

it was a melancholy pilgrimage from the Northern moors 
of Yorkshire to the Thames Valley. They waited till 
the first of May before starting, to ensure the best chance 
of good weather and to give the indefatigable messengers 
time to collect from their hiding-places some of the others 
who had been able to escape. The company eventually 
numbered thirty, and it was a sunny spring morning on which 
they started ; and for a time all was as pleasant as a holiday. 
The moor bore no trace of human devastation, and the air 
was full of birdsong, larks trilling from the sky, cuckoos 
flying and calling, a million small songsters making a con¬ 
fused but pleasant babel of music. Lady Scarlett was the 
only representative of her sex. She was mounted on the 
stout pony one of the messengers had ridden. He had 
insisted on her taking it. Other horses were running about 
masterless and he could manage them ; this was perfectly 
quiet and easy to ride. 

So they started, laughing, joking and humming little 
airs. The messengers departed northwards in search 
of other recruits, but not before they had given many 
warnings and directions to which in their excitement and 
exultation they had not given the heed they deserved. A 
single day’s march, in which they covered about twenty 
miles, took them out of the moors into the Vale of York 
and then they began to realise what had happened. 

Historians had agreed that the German devastation 
of the Somme valley was the most awful outrage of its kind 
in modern history, but it was nothing to the completeness 
with which the coloured army had laid England waste. 
In the agricultural districts farmhouse and cottage had 
been levelled with the ground ; towns had become heaps 
of stones. What proved an almost insuperable difficulty 
was that all the important bridges had been destroyed. 


264 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

How were they to get over the Ouse at York ? Had 
Sir John not been able to work out its geographical position 
they would not have believed that the confused stone 
quarry was all that was left of the ancient capital. The 
Minster had been pulverised, the ancient buildings and 
the modern, the palace and the factory, were all laid low; 
but the pilgrims were so engrossed with the practical diffi¬ 
culty about crossing the river that they could not realise 
the departed glories of architecture. 

It was one of the younger men who first saw a way out 
of the dilemma. As further advance to the south was 
checked by the Derwent, he strolled in the opposite direction 
till he came opposite the meeting place of the Wharfe and 
the Ouse. In a little cove just below he caught sight of a 
thick tree-trunk that had apparently been carried off by 
a flood. Being a lad of quick resolution he stripped, and 
making his clothes into a bundle which he held clear of 
the water as he waded in and swimming with legs and one 
arm reached the tree. Its course down-stream had been 
interrupted by the limbs of a willow tree. Leaving most 
of his clothes behind and putting on the minimum that 
decency required, he shoved off and began floating down 
stream using his bare legs at first to give a little impetus to 
his strange barque and to keep it in the required direction. 
Those on shore quickly assembled to watch the voyage, and 
Lady Scarlett did not fail to notice that the trunk wobbled 
a great deal, as if it had a natural inclination to advance 
by going round and round wheel fashion. Whereupon 
she made up her mind that the style of navigation would 
not suit a lady. The young man divined her thoughts. 

“ Dobbin will carry you all right, madam,” he said. 
“ We will make some kind of a lanyard to tow him with if 
he doesn’t like going out of his depth, but in any case you 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 265 

are like to have a bit of a splashing. I’d send most of my 
clothes in the luggage boat if I were you. We will take 
them and you on the next trip.” 

He was already fixing up six men with himself as 
seventh. “ Just fancy yourselves a ’Varsity crew with me 
as stroke,” he said arranging them stride-legs on the log, 
after they had laid aside their nether garments. “ Now 
men altogether and with a will. One, two, one, two, one, 
two. She is going like a racer. Ten yards in half an hour ! ” 

His high spirits were contagious. They laughed and 
made an effort to keep time. But all this took longer than 
is suggested by the hurried writing, and by the time they 
had got the tree to advance at a snail’s pace the lady had 
mounted her steed, of which a nervous individual had 
the bridle. Dobbin seemed to eye the raft as though he 
knew all about it. He shook his bridle clear of the nervous 
hand that held it and advanced briskly into the water. 
Lady Scarlett made a feeble attempt to check him, then 
gave him his head in the hope that his instinct would be 
better than her guidance. Her confidence was rewarded. 
The stout little horse plunged into the water and though 
he sunk to the gunwale so to speak, swam boldly when out 
of his depth and passed the log and its occupants almost 
immediately. 

“ Splendid,” shouted the young man. “ Hold on to 
him Lady Scarlett. The little chap must have done this 
many a time when going north.” 

She recognised that this must be true and felt much 
encouraged. 

“ If you could only infuse the spirit of the pony into 
this damned log,” remarked the stroke to his crew, who, 
in their grave elderly way tried to ply their thin shanks 
to more purpose. 


266 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


The crossing though slow and laborious was accom¬ 
plished without any casualty, and the incident not only 
had a cheering effect but furnished material for conversation 
during the next two hours at least. 

It would be needless to recount how a similar difficulty 
arose again and again, and how each was surmounted. 
There was not one who had not from time to time travelled 
the road in the carriages of the Great Northern Railway, 
over whose grass-grown track they often walked, but never 
had they realised the number of rivers in the midland 
counties or what an awkward job it was to get over a com¬ 
paratively small stream. Their moods changed frequently. 
Sometimes they would join in a popular song, bringing it 
out merrily as if to defy fate, but ever and anon the waste 
and desolation would make themselves felt again and the 
spirited attempt to be jolly would fade away or turn into 
fear and apprehension. 

Poor, quiet, commonplace citizens! It was against 
all their previous experience to find the weeds spread over 
the whole landscape, covering field and road alike. They 
would recall memories that seemed very far off now ; clouds 
of dense smoke from busy factories, ringing of church bells, 
swift passage of motors. Instead, the stillness of the grave lay 
over England’s heart. It oppressed them all the more 
because of their constant hunger. Each had brought 
a little bag of meal, and, like the Scotch soldiers described 
by Froissart, Lady Scarlett carried a girdle at her stirrup, 
so that when they stopped she could make cakes for them. 
If they had the luck to come on a marshy place or pool, 
and these had multiplied through neglect of drainage, 
they could collect eggs enough for a feast, cooked on a fire 
of fallen wood. But these were windfalls. The meal 
bags were emptying and the pace was slow. Only by 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 267 

strict rationing could they hope to win through. Hunger 
began to be continuous, and every kind of apprehension 
becomes serious on an empty stomach. 

They saw very few specimens of the human race. 
They were without exception small, thin, and apparently 
young ; exceedingly timid too. They fled in terror at the 
sight of strangers and hid in the woods or reeds till the 
procession went by, though they could be seen creeping 
out again to search the last halt for a scrap of food. A few, 
emboldened by hunger and desperation, attempted acts 
of hostility. Luckily they had no firearms or weapons 
of any kind except such as were employed by primitive man. 
At a place judged to be a little south of Peterborough 
stones were thrown at the pony from the edge of a spinney. 
At the discharge of a gun the assailants fled, though it 
was fired in the air and meant only to give them a warning. 

No serious mishap of any kind occurred to them. 
A hopeful spirit and a long tramp in the open air dismissed 
the last remnants of sadness and sickness from their minds. 
They had many a long search for food on the way, but they 
managed to arrive stronger and healthier in every way than 
they were at the setting out. 


XXVIII 


The end 

F OR eight weeks I was Dr. Turnbull’s guest; and the 
period is figured in my mind as a single day that 
opened with dew and sunlight and long morning shadows, but 
closed in storm and darkness. This is a mental impression 
of the inward life, by no means a record of weather. The 
English winter was seen at its worst. Every day seemed 
gloomier than the day preceding. Snow and frost, thaw, 
rain and flood followed one another with a rare glimpse of 
sunshine or a thunderstorm between. 

In my very brief expeditions I felt, rather than saw, 
that the people were becoming sullen and apprehensive ; 
but I did not guess what was the ground of their alarm. 
Weather did not matter much to one who had an engrossing 
task indoors and two companions of whom it was impossible 
to grow weary. Dr. Turnbull did not go out except to 
urgent cases; and partly for my benefit, but still more to 
make a survey of what he and others had done in the Settle¬ 
ment, he talked by the hour about its affairs in general, 
but chiefly about the mistakes in government which had 
led to the ruin of the old order; and he described with 
pride the means by which the new generation avoided the 
worst of their errors. He found in me a more docile listener 
than in Bessie who, altogether disdaining weather, would 


268 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 269 

arrive in snowy mantle clad, dripping wet or steaming witli 
frost, she and her pony, according to what she encountered 
on the moor. She was always ready to engage the Doctor in 
argument and an unsympathetic observer might have 
supposed them at daggers drawn, but that was just because 
he had from infancy taught her to judge for herself. They 
were at heart the greatest friends. 

A perpetual cause of argument between them was the 
“ Records of the Settlement,” a journal that had been kept 
from early days by the Head Man of his time. The Doctor 
urged me to copy it out, a formidable undertaking as it 
had been kept for a century and a half, and to each year 
there was a goodly volume much larger than our National 
Register. Bessie with her practical sense contended that 
it would be labour in vain because the writers had not 
been able in every case or even in the majority of cases to 
distinguish between the important and the unimportant. 

“ One of the best annalists,” she said, “ was more interested 
in fish than in any other topic. He had made and stocked 
many fish ponds, and his volume was only interesting when 
he wrote about fish. ‘ O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified,’ 
might have been his motto. Another was a keen excavator 
of ruined cities. He had no imagination, but was great at 
measuring and weighing. His book was filled with dimen¬ 
sions and discoveries. You could make a book out of 
things of this kind and call it ‘ Nothing like Leather/ ” 
said Bessie. 

She finished her mocking suggestion with a laugh that 
roused Dr. Turnbull, but he could not make an effective 
reply—especially as in order to encourage impartiality it 
had been agreed that each chronicler should be allowed 
to keep his writing secret till he died. Bessie pressed home 
her victory by declaring that after all it was human nature 


270 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

that counted most, and she considered the story of “ The 
Five Widows of Cardiff ” of more value than any official 
record and it had the advantage of being a hundred times 
more amusing. When she mentioned a thing of that kind 
I made a mental note to read and copy it. 

These were happy times. Disputes were always arising 
but there was no bitterness or ill-will, so that it only required 
a merry jape to dissolve opposition in laughter. I wrote 
industriously but read even more, as in their encounters 
each of the combatants was continually bringing up some¬ 
thing that was new, something interesting to me. All 
the time I was living in a fool’s paradise. The first inti¬ 
mation of that fact came accidentally and received little 
attention at the time though it made me uncomfortable 
for the moment. One morning I was enjoying a gleam of 
sunshine on the southern side of a laurel hedge when Dr. 
Turnbull and Bessie came along the path on the opposite 
side. 

“ Isn’t our visitor happy,” she exclaimed. 

“ Call no man happy till he’s dead,” answered the Doctor 
in a dry, ominous tone that made me feel as though I had 
received a douche of cold water. 

It was not real happiness but illusion. My former life 
had faded into a blurred memory. It was as though the 
spirit from fields of asphodel was looking back at the old 
hopes, dreams, ambitions and finding them too trivial even 
for laughter. For the moment there was no future and no 
past. I seemed to be anchored to the everlasting Now. 

Bessie, as is clear enough now, had made repeated efforts 
to stir me out of this state of mind, but she did it so gently 
with such a tender reluctance to pain or alarm that she 
failed to make her prepossessed hearer listen to the warning 
bell. It was stupid not to have noticed that while she 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 


271 


became almost motherly in her solicitude towards me and 
my well-being she had become shy of taking me out with her. 
But she always had an excellent reason. There was rain 
or snow or fog. If the sky were clear the frost was keen or 
it was so hot that a winter thunderstorm must be approaching. 
Such excuses easily served the purpose. I had lost the will 
to go out. 

One afternoon she entered my room with a look on her 
face which should have been enough in itself to rouse me 
out of my complacency. Its fixity of purpose did indeed 
draw from their hidden depths a horde of doubts and 
apprehensions that had gained a footing in my subconscious 
self, but as at the same moment my admiration drove every¬ 
thing else away, and the momentary fear vanished 
again. 

I said her brown eyes were like stars when their brightness 
is dimmed by the silver foam of scudding clouds, but 
she made no immediate answer, but looked out at the 
window where dusk was beginning to creep over wood and 
wold. The single trees near the Settlement assumed their 
darkest robes as the light waned, and eventually became 
massive black figures. Nearer the wood they were in 
clumps that gradually merged into a deep mysterious beech- 
wood. Bessie gazed like one entranced at the woodland 
gradually being engulfed in night, and I completely failed 
to trace her thought. 

Instead of dwelling on her manifest anxiety I allowed my 
mind to follow her glance and began to talk about the 
magic of a big woodland. 

“ All day it is dominated by man, but with the coming 
dusk it deepens its shadows and gradually hides the opening 
of the little woodland ways as if preparing to enjoy its 
nightly return to primeval grandeur—a gigantic mass 


272 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

presently to be swallowed in the darkness of night. Then 
it becomes the shore of old romance, dryads and gnomes 
and little elves return to their old haunts,” I said. 

Bessie was very far from falling into my train of thought. 
She said : “ You could not have taken a more effective way 
to prove yourself only a Visitor here than by talking about 
the forest at night-time being beautiful and enchanted. 
Every native hates and fears it. There is no pleasure or 
romance in the surprise of meeting a bear, a pack of wolves 
or a wild boar. Common people will tell you these are the 
least of the terrors. They have come to believe it has 
worse in the shape of monsters and devils. I can’t say 
much about the latter, but I have had experience of the 
former. This forest three times in my short life has sheltered 
a monster. In each case it has turned out to be a wild man 
fiercer and more cunning than any beast. Dr. Turnbull 
holds, and I think he is right, that occasionally a child from 
beyond the barrier grows to a man’s normal height and 
becomes a giant. Now, ask what effect would be produced 
if for any cause you had to make a woodland journey at 
night. You would have to be on the look-out for the wild 
beasts among which the crafty giant with his club counts 
as one, for he like them, waits his chance to slay and devour. 
Would not a man of nerve and courage be put on his mettle ? 
And if so, the ordinary child-like superstitious rustic would 
be driven frantic. Imagination especially in moonlight 
sees what you call gnomes and elves in the twigs and branches 
of the trees. I, who do not believe in dryads or fairies, have 
often been frightened at what appeared to be a human head 
though it was only a passing jest of the wind who wove the 
resemblance out of greenery as a child makes shadow rabbits 
on the wall. There is no mother of superstition as prolific 
as the forest. For every real and terrible enemy it harbours, 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 273 

imagination produces a horde of shapes. Let the wind get 
up and howl in brake and thicket and you will speedily 
believe in anything visible or invisible.” 

She ceased a moment and then resumed in a tone of 
disappointment and vexation : “ I see by your face that 
you do not regard this as anything but an amusing absurdity. 
You cannot blame them for their superstititon if you think 
of all that they have gone through, they and their forebears. 
I cannot complain even though superstition has sharpened 
their anger against you. I daresay you scarcely have noticed, 
for you do not mind such things, that lately the rain has been 
excessive, and it has roused old memories of the flood and the 
famine. Somebody has evidently mentioned you as a 
mysterious being who is the cause of this misfortune. 
Think of it, my dear. You are living among a people 
whose minds are chokeful of gross and morbid terrors. 
Their attention has been drawn to you. Some say 
you don’t belong to this world at all. It has been 
noticed that you do not pretend to be anything but a 
stranger, you do not carry a tool or a gun like other men, 
but go about with a note-book and a pencil in your hand. 
You speak our tongue but like a foreigner. You wear our 
dress but it does not disguise your strangeness. So far 
they have been held back by fear alone from attempting 
to injure you. In that way you have been my protection. 
They are in the mood to tear me to bits for being your 
friend, but they dare not.” 

All at once the torrent ceased and in her sweetest, 
gentlest accent she was entreating: “ Do not be angry, 
dear Visitor. I tried to warn you by hint, and hoped 
ignorant animosity would die down, but that was not to 
be, so I have told you all. Your Bessie has told you all.” 

Her tears and her tender, broken voice melted my heart, 


274 T HE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

and what I would have done I do not know, for I was 
checked by a noise like that of a rushing wind, and her 
figure and mine became fixed like marble. A presence 
invisible made itself felt in the room. Yet I was unconscious 
of any sign of displeasure, rather of an encouragement to 
frankness that had the force of a command to speak the 
truth without any mental reservation or comment. 

“ Bessie, my darling,” I said, “ our spirits, still embodied, 
have met only in the little playfields of time. We have 
to part now, as sister parts from brother, when the priest 
throws the first handful of mould on the coffin. Our hope 
and faith is in eternity.” 

“ Ah, dear Visitor,” she replied, “ teach me your faith. 
Godless am I, and of Godless folk I have come. When you 
aspire to an eternity of bliss I think of generations wending 
their way through daylight and dark and falling at last 
into a pit where the body moulders and moulders till it 
passes into living tissue again, tissue of man, tissue of goose 
and ass.” 

“ The spirit wove the flesh only as a garment,” I was 
beginning, when she broke out with impatient tenderness: 

“ We have but one life to live, O my heart. Let us 
enjoy the present hour. We have but one life.” 

I had pressed a finger on my lips entreating her silence, 
but she, not knowing of the invisible form that watched, 
pushed the finger away gently and laid her lips to mine. 

While this conversation was going on, my whole being 
was so concentrated on it that I scarcely heard, or heard 
only as in a dream, the threatening turmoil of a crowd that 
had been gathering round the house, but now the voices 
that had been partially subdued grew into a great roar, and 
there were cries of “ The Stranger, the Stranger: bring 
him out! ” As these words were repeated with increasing 


THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 275 

vehemence, I at last stepped out into the full light of the 
torches. The effect was to me incomprehensible. The 
rude faces began to quake with fear, and the hands that 
held the torches trembled. They tried in vain to articulate 
any clear language, yet I knew that they meant some 
accusation. 

“ What is my offence ? ” I asked. 

“ The weather,” was the answer given by a thin, 
trembling voice in the crowd. “ ’Twas a witch last brought 
a drowning to the Vale. We drowned her and the waters 
abated. You we cannot drown and we cannot shoot.” I 
could not help laughing, but as I did so a low, mournful 
moan went up from the crowd. 

“ He only laughs at us,” “ Our cows have perished,” 
“ Our swine are dying,” “ We shall die of hunger,” were 
phrases that came to me from the crowd. I did not know 
what to do. There was no way of appeasing them or 
allaying their terror. 

I held up my hand for silence. To my surprise the 
effect was to make them suddenly stand as stiff and silent 
as though they had, like Lot’s wife, been turned into pillars 
of salt. 

“ My friends,” I said as calmly as I could, “ there is 
no evil intent in my mind towards any of you, and if I 
can relieve you of your burden you have only to tell me 
how.” 

“ Leave us,” they replied with one accord. A voice said, 
“ You must.” 

Whether it came from within me or without I do not 
know, but I realised it was final and irresistible, like an 
ordinance of-nature. 

The clamour of the crowd was sounding in my ears 
when above it approached the noise of a mighty wind. I 


276 THE COLLAPSE OF HOMO SAPIENS 

turned to look at Bessie, whose dear form seemed to fade 
as I did so, although her eyes still burned into mine. 
As I gazed a mist grew between us, the torches went out, 
and silence grew deeper and deeper. Space enfolded me. 
I fell blinded through it, through nothingness and annihila¬ 
tion it seemed for years, till with a deep sigh and sob I 
saw a little cave of light. It grew and grew; familiar 
forgotten scenes sprung to life as my sight returned. I 
found myself as of old waking from sleep in my own bed¬ 
room in the Kentish tower. But clasped in my hand was 
a little bundle of papers. They were the notes of the 
records of New London. That yielded a melancholy 
satisfaction. It proved that the eternal power was not 
altogether displeased, and tacitly allowed that the story 
of my expedition into time should be told as an experience 
and warning. 

That is all I live for now. My longing for two thousand 
years of life has ended. It is replaced by a more intense 
desire that the moment will quickly arrive in which I shall 
leave time for eternity and regain a dear companionship. 


End of the Unknown’s Manuscript. 





















































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